14-Year-Old Killed by Israeli Gunfire in West Bank Raid, Buried as Second Teen Death in Days

A 14-year-old Palestinian boy was shot and killed by Israeli forces during a military raid on the Askar refugee camp outside Nablus, and buried Sunday, August 23, according to Al Jazeera. The Palestinian health ministry identified him as Islam Ahmad Maher Ajouri.

A source from the Palestinian Red Crescent told AFP, as reported by the Hindustan Times and Asharq Al-Awsat, that Ajouri was hit in the chest by live ammunition and pronounced dead at Nablus National Hospital. Mohammed Abu Kashk, head of the Askar camp services committee, told AFP "there were no clashes or confrontations that would justify shooting a child and killing him." The boy's uncle, Ahmed Mohamed Zamzoum, said at the funeral that his nephew had simply gone outside during the raid. "Every time the Israeli forces enter, one or more martyrs are killed," he told AFP.

The Israeli army told AFP it was still verifying the details of the incident. No further statement from the Israeli military on the shooting itself appears in the available reporting.

The same day, the Israeli army reported two other West Bank incidents. Soldiers apprehended a man suspected of stabbing a 24-year-old Israeli near a shopping center in Al-Auja, whose condition was described by Israeli police as "moderate." And near the town of Taybeh, the army said a "terrorist" tried to steal a weapon from an IDF soldier and was "neutralized" after troops opened fire. Palestinian sources told AFP the man, Aws Akram Maatan, was shot in the foot and hospitalized. The head of his home village council, Sayel Kanaan, said Maatan was shot "without justification." These are competing, unresolved accounts of the same incident.

Ajouri's death follows a separate killing two days earlier. According to the LA Times and Breitbart, both citing the Palestinian Health Ministry, Israeli settlers shot and killed 17-year-old Karim Sanad Raja Shalaldeh on Friday, August 21, in Sa'ir, north of Hebron, after Palestinians threw rocks at Israeli civilians in the area. The teenager's father told the Associated Press that settlers killed his son. The Israeli military said soldiers were dispatched after the rock-throwing, that Israelis were injured, and that a security official opened fire. Another man was wounded in the same incident.

A third man, 58-year-old Fathi Khazem, was fatally shot by Israeli forces in Jenin the same Friday. An Israeli army official, speaking anonymously per military rules, said Khazem tried to stab a soldier during an overnight operation and that no Israeli troops were hurt. The official noted Khazem was the father of Raed Khazem, who carried out a shooting attack in Tel Aviv in April 2022.

The scale of the violence is not in dispute across the sources, even if the details of individual incidents are contested. An AFP tally cited by the Hindustan Times and Asharq Al-Awsat puts the toll at more than 1,100 Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers or settlers in the West Bank since Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel, against at least 48 Israelis killed in Palestinian attacks or Israeli military operations over the same period. Palestinian officials, cited by the LA Times and Breitbart, say at least 87 Palestinians have been killed in nearly 1,500 settler and soldier attacks this year.

An Israeli human rights group, Yesh Din, released a report Friday titled "The Next Frontier," cited by the LA Times, arguing that settler violence has shifted from rural areas toward larger Palestinian towns and cities. The group ties this to government approval of new settlements and its practice of often leaving unauthorized outposts in place. "As outposts advance deeper into Palestinian territory, violence, harassment and terror follow," the report states. That is Yesh Din's interpretation of the data, not an independently adjudicated finding, and the Israeli government has not offered a competing explanation in these reports.

Separately, Turkey's Justice Minister Akin Gurlek announced Friday that Ankara is seeking an Interpol red notice for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, tied to an Istanbul court trying 35 defendants in absentia over Israel's May interception of a flotilla attempting to break the naval blockade of Gaza. The case alleges genocide, crimes against humanity, torture, unlawful detention and hijacking. Netanyahu responded on social media calling Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan an "antisemitic dictator" and dismissing the effort as a "pathetic attempt to intimidate the leaders and soldiers of Israel."

The Israeli military's stated position across these incidents is consistent: it says its forces and the settlers involved acted in response to specific threats, whether rock-throwing, stabbing attempts, or weapon theft. Palestinian family members and local officials, in each case, dispute that any threat justified lethal force. AFP's reporting notes the Israeli army was still verifying the Ajouri shooting as of Sunday. No independent investigation result has been reported for any of the four deaths described here.