Israeli army kills two Palestinians in West Bank raids
Israeli forces killed two Palestinians in the occupied West Bank on Saturday and several were wounded during an arrest raid.
The men were identified by the Palestinian Health Ministry as Said Jihad Shaker Mashah, 32, and Adnan Waseem Yousef al-Araj, 19, from the Balata refugee camp in Nablus.
Israeli forces had conducted a raid on a house near Nablus to arrest suspects, according to witnesses.
The Israeli media outlet Hareetz said the Israeli army later admitted it was unable to carry out the arrest operation through and that an exchange of fire had occurred.
The Palestinians killed were not the suspects the Israeli military was seeking, the army said.
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Palestinian media outlet, Arab48, reported an eyewitness account from photojournalist Jamal Rayan, who said the two young men were shot by snipers with bullets straight to the head and they posed no threat to Israeli forces.
At least 150 Palestinians have died from Israeli fire this year, including 33 killed in Gaza since Tuesday.
A total of 19 Israelis and one Ukrainian have been killed by Palestinians over the same period.
Israeli assault on Gaza
The Israeli assault on Gaza has entered its fifth day, when, after a brief calm on Friday night amid reports of indirect truce talks, the fire exchanges resumed overnight.
Egypt reportedly proposed a temporary humanitarian ceasefire starting from midnight local time.
But Cairo failed to make a breakthrough in the talks once again, and Israeli fighter jets continued bombing Gaza shortly after midnight.
Explosions were heard across the Palestinian enclave, as incoming rocket sirens were sounded in Israeli towns near Gaza.
The secretary-general of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Hussein al-Sheikh, urged the international community to pressure to stop its bombing campaign in Gaza.
"In the midst of this continuous aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip and the rest of the country, we call on the USA, the international community and our Arab brothers to put pressure on the occupation authorities to immediately stop the aggression against the Palestinian people," Sheikh said in a tweet on Saturday.
"We call on international and humanitarian institutions to intervene quickly to open the crossings with the Gaza Strip and transfer the injured for treatment."
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