Israeli soldiers kill Palestinian teen in West Bank confrontation

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Israeli soldiers opened fire on protesters during a confrontation near a West Bank separation barrier Tuesday, killing a 17-year-old Palestinian boy, officials and witnesses said.

Medics at Ramallah hospital said Samir Awad, a high school student from the West Bank village of Budrus, was brought to the hospital with bullet wounds to the head, back and leg. He was in critical condition and died shortly afterward, they said.

Muhammad Murrar, head of the Budrus village council, said students were leaving school on the last day of their mid-year exams when confrontations broke out with soldiers in the area.

The school is located near a separation barrier Israel had built on village land where soldiers normally patrol.

Israeli media quoted a military spokesman saying that Awad approached a fence in the barrier and tried to breach it. The soldiers warned him to stop and when he did not, they fired their weapons.

Military spokesman Capt. Eytan Buchman said troops “initiated standard rules of engagement, which included live fire,” the Associated Press reported. An investigation into the shooting has been ordered.

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