Palestinian youths Muhammad Ahmad Fayez al-Awfi (L) and Nabil Atta Muhammad Ame were shot and killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarm on February 18, 2024. (Via social media networks)

Ramallah, February 18 (RHC)-- The Israeli regime’s forces have fatally shot two Palestinian youths in the occupied West Bank and injured at least four others.  Palestinian media said the casualties took place on Sunday during a violent raid by the Israeli forces on the city of Tulkarm and its refugee camp in the north of the occupied West Bank.

The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the two young men as Muhammad Ahmad Fayez al-Awfi, 36 years old, and Nabil Atta Muhammad Amer, 19, saying the young men were killed by “Israeli occupation bullets.”

Stressing that the Israeli forces had “seized” Fayez al-Awfi’s body, the ministry described the condition of the four inured Palestinians as “stable.”  Detailing the raid on Sunday afternoon, the reports said the Israeli occupation, backed by a large number of vehicles and a military bulldozer, stormed the Tulkarm refugee camp after imposing a tight security cordon on the area, triggering an outbreak of violent clashes and fire exchanges between local residents and the regime forces.

Witnesses said they had heard the sounds of violent explosions from time to time during the Israeli raid on Tulkarm, with snipers being deployed to the rooftops and helicopters hovering over the refugee camp.
Israeli occupation forces also impeded the arrival of ambulances into the camp, hindering the swift evacuation of those in need of treatment.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry denounced the deadly Israeli attack on Tulkarm and said, “Carte blanche has been given to Israeli soldiers from the political echelon, enabling them to shoot Palestinians on a whim and without any threat posed.”

The regime has ramped up its aggression across the West Bank since early October 2023, when it began its genocidal war against the besieged Gaza Strip.

At least 398 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces across the occupied territory since then, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

The aggression against Gaza has so far claimed the lives of nearly 29,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, leaving more than 68,800 others wounded.

Israel's onslaught started after Gaza-based resistance movements carried out a historic operation against the occupying entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

In a related development on Sunday, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell described the situation in the occupied West Bank as being at a boiling point and said it posed a “major obstacle” to finding a long-term solution for peace in the Palestinian territories.

"The West Bank is the real obstacle for the two-state solution," Borrell said at the Munich Security Conference. "The West Bank is at a boiling point... we could be on the eve of a greater explosion.”

Borrell said the EU needed to "support the Arab initiative" to establish an independent Palestinian State, including both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

More than 600,000 Israelis live in over 230 settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East al-Quds.

The international community views the settlements – hundreds of which have been built across the West Bank since Tel Aviv’s occupation of the territory in 1967 – as illegal under international law and the Geneva Conventions due to their construction on militarily-occupied territories.