Israeli armoured vehicles block a road during a raid in Tubas city in the occupied West Bank on August 14, 2024.    (Photo by AFP)

Ramallah, August 16 (RHC)-- Israeli forces have shot at point-blank three Palestinians, including a 17-year-old boy, who had been severely injured in an earlier drone strike in the northern occupied West Bank.

Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCIP) in a statement said the Israeli military had shot the three Palestinians who had been seriously wounded and lying on the ground after a drone attack in Tammun village in the West Bank on Wednesday.

The child rights organization reported that documentation gathered following the tragic incident indicates that the three victims, including the 17-year-old Mohammad Bashar Hasan Bani Odeh, were seriously wounded yet still alive when a military vehicle reached the attack site.

The group stated that when the Israeli soldiers realized that Mohammad and the other two injured men were alive, they threatened an ambulance driver at gunpoint, forcing him to depart before fatally shooting each of the injured individuals at close range.

“Mohammad was unarmed and not participating in confrontations at the time he was killed,” the DCIP said in its statement.  It added that after an hour, Israeli forces placed them in a military vehicle and transported them to an unknown location and “confiscated” Mohammad’s body alongside the other killed men.

“Countries need to enact an immediate arms embargo and sanctions on Israel to force accountability for Israeli forces who have been allowed to brutally kill Palestinian children with impunity for decades,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, accountability program director at DCIP.

Earlier reports indicated that an Israeli drone strike in the Balata refugee camp, situated near Balata village on the outskirts of Nablus, resulted in the deaths of two Palestinian men and injuries to four others, including a woman and a child.

Clashes erupted and casualties were reported in Nablus city as Israeli forces conducted a raid while escorting Jewish visitors to the contentious site of Joseph’s Tomb, situated in Balata village, according to Al Jazeera Arabic.

Joseph's Tomb is situated in the West Bank’s Area A, which is controlled by the Palestinian Authority; however, the Israeli military allows the settlers to visit the site without approval, and even escorts them into the place.

The latest development came a day after five Palestinian were killed by Israeli forces during raids in the West Bank cities of Tubas and Tammun.  Drone attacks in the West Bank have become increasingly common in recent months.

Since Israel unleashed a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip in early October 2023, casualties have been rising in the West Bank as a result of intensified near-daily raids by the regime troops into Palestinian towns.

A total of 632 Palestinians, including 142 children, have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces since the beginning of Israel’s Gaza onslaught, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

Over 40,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, have also been killed in Israeli attacks across the besieged Gaza in the past more than 10 months.