Ramallah, January 30 (RHC)-- Israeli forces have shot and killed a Palestinian teenager north of the city of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. The 19-year-old, named Mohammad Mubarak, was killed just north of the Ofra settlement on Wednesday.

Eye-witnesses said the victim was not armed, and had been harassed by soldiers who made him remove his clothes. The Israeli army, however, distributed pictures of a gun which Mubarak had allegedly used to open fire.

"A Palestinian terrorist opened fire at an IDF (army) post near Ofra. The soldiers responded immediately in order to eliminate the imminent threat to their lives and fired towards the terrorist, identifying a hit," the army said.

The Palestinian Authority’s housing and public works minister Maher Ghneim condemned the Israeli army’s "cold-blooded killing" of Mubarak. He called on international organizations to investigate the incident, and slammed Israeli media for "distorting the story" by saying Mubarak had initially opened fire at the soldiers.