West Bank teen killed as Israeli troops clash with Palestinians

A man kissing the head of Palestinian teenager Mohammed Dudin, who medics said was killed by Israeli troops, at a hospital in the West Bank city of Hebron on Friday. PHOTO: REUTERS
A man kissing the head of Palestinian teenager Mohammed Dudin, who medics said was killed by Israeli troops, at a hospital in the West Bank city of Hebron on Friday. PHOTO: REUTERS

RAMALLAH (West Bank) (Reuters) - Israeli troops killed a Palestinian teenager in the occupied West Bank on Friday, Palestinian medics said, as their forces continued a crackdown on Islamist militants as they searched for three Israeli teenagers missing for more than a week.

Mohammed Dudin, 15, was killed in the village of Dura, near Hebron in the southern West Bank, close to where the three Israeli teenagers went missing eight days ago. Israel says they were abducted by the Islamist Hamas group.

Palestinians clashed with Israeli troops at various locations across the West Bank and residents reported a number of other injuries. The Israeli military was checking for details of the clashes, a spokeswoman said.

Israel has said its West Bank operation is twofold: to find Gil-Ad Shaer and US-Israeli national Naftali Fraenkel, both aged 16, and Eyal Yifrah, 19, and to deal a substantial blow to Hamas, a group dedicated to its destruction.

Before dawn, Israel also carried out air strikes on three locations in the Gaza Strip after militants launched two rockets from the territory into Israel on Thursday night.

Dudin was the second Palestinian killed since Israel began its operation across the West Bank a week ago. Some 280 Palestinians had been detained by Thursday and troops had made more arrests overnight, the military said on Friday.

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