Israeli troops kill 15-year-old Palestinian bystander

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israeli troops mistakenly killed a Palestinian bystander on Tuesday while responding with gunfire to a petrol bomb and rock attack on Israeli vehicles in the occupied West Bank, the military said. An earlier statement from the military had identified the Palestinian as an assailant. The mayor of his village said he was a 15-year-old. Abdul Karim Kassem, head of the local council of the Palestinian village of Beit Ore-Tahta, told Reuters that Mahmoud Badran, the teenager killed in the incident on Highway 443, was in a car with other passengers “returning from a pool in a village near us when they came under fire.” Another Palestinian was wounded by Israeli gunfire and taken to hospital in the West Bank city of Ramallah. The military said two additional suspects were arrested. The Israeli army admitted that the group of Palestinians shot by Israeli forces overnight, one of them fatally, after a stone-throwing incident in the occupied West Bank may have been “uninvolved bystanders.” “From initial inquiry, it appears uninvolved bystanders were mistakenly hit during the pursuit,” an army spokeswoman said. Asked by AFP whether that included the person killed, she said yes, as well as those wounded. The spokeswoman said the circumstances were being investigated. In addition to the person killed, four people were wounded, Palestinian officials said. Israel demolishes home of Palestinian The Israeli military has demolished the home of a Palestinian who allegedly stabbed to death an American tourist and war veteran in an attack earlier this year. The troops entered the West Bank village of Hajjah early on Tuesday to knock down the residence of Bashar Masalha. In March, he allegedly killed Taylor Force and wounded 10 others in a stabbing attack on a Tel Aviv beachfront promenade. Force was a Vanderbilt University graduate student visiting Israel during a school trip. He previously graduated from West Point and served tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. Masalha was killed by police after the attack. Israel carries out housing demolitions to deter future attacks. The Palestinians consider it a form of collective punishment.