Hamas condemns Israeli killing of Palestinian teen

The Palestinian martyrs’ blood will be “a curse that haunts the Israeli occupying forces across Palestine,” Hamas said in a statement released on Sunday, adding that the Palestinian people will never rest until they have avenged their martyrs.

Hamas also paid tribute to the Palestinian youth for courageously facing the barbarism of the Israeli regime forces. The slain Palestinian was identified as 18-year-old Musab Mohammad Nafal, who was targeted with a live bullet to the heart near the town of Sinjil on Saturday.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said, "Nafal had been critically injured by a live Israeli bullet in the heart" and "was rushed to Palestine Medical Complex in [the city of] Ramallah where he was pronounced dead of his wound."

On Thursday alone, Israeli forces killed four Palestinians in the West Bank, including a fighter with the Islamic Jihad resistance movement. Late October, the United Nations special coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Tor Wennesland, warned "2022 is on course to be the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs began systematically tracking Palestinian fatalities in 2005.”

"Near-daily instances of violence, [are] unfolding against a backdrop of unabated Israeli settlement expansion, evictions of Palestinians, and home demolitions,” Wennesland said at the time.

Human rights groups say they have documented numerous cases of Israeli soldiers gunning down peaceful Palestinian protesters across the occupied territories.