Palestinian teen shot by Israeli forces dies, hundreds attend funeral

Hundreds of mourners have attended the funeral of a Palestinian teenager Ahmad Shamsa, who was shot by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank.

The mourners carried his body and marched in Beita village near the city of Nablus.

The Palestinian health ministry announced earlier on Thursday that Shamsa, 15, who was shot by Israeli troops a day earlier, had died of his injuries.

The Israeli military said a soldier stationed near a wildcat settler outpost near Nablus saw a group of Palestinians approaching, and that one "hurled a suspicious object at him, which exploded adjacent to the soldier."

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The army said the soldier fired in the air, then shot the Palestinian who threw the object.

Israeli prosecutors on Thursday charged a border police officer with reckless manslaughter in the deadly shooting of an autistic Palestinian man in Jerusalem’s Old City last year.

The indictment came just over a year after the shooting of Eyad Hallaq. Hallaq’s family had previously criticised Israeli authorities’ investigation into Eyad’s killing, and had called for much tougher charges.
The officer, who remains unidentified in the indictment submitted to the Jerusalem District Court on Thursday, was charged with reckless manslaughter, and if convicted could face up to 12 years in prison.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Israeli military shot and killed a Palestinian woman whom it said tried to ram her car into a group of soldiers guarding a West Bank construction site.

In a statement, the army said soldiers fired at the woman in Hizmeh, just north of Jerusalem, after she exited the car and pulled out a knife.

The statement did not say how close the woman was to the soldiers, and the army did not release any photos or video of the incident.

Palestinians and Israeli human rights groups say the soldiers often use excessive force and could stop the assailants without killing them.

In some cases, they say that innocent people have been identified as attackers and shot.

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