Two Palestinians were killed on Saturday during an Israeli army raid in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
The two youths were shot dead by Israeli forces “during an assault on the village of Jaba, south of Jenin” in the northern West Bank, the ministry said.
No further details were provided about the circumstances surrounding their deaths.
The Islamic Jihad militant group condemned the killings in a statement, describing the two men as “heroic martyrs” belonging to the group.
He said they were killed while trying to intervene against the “occupying forces who were carrying out a dastardly assassination operation.”
The Israeli army said in a brief statement that it had launched an “anti-terror activity” near the village, during which “the suspects fired live ammunition at them” from a passing vehicle.
“The soldiers responded with live fire. Hits were identified,” he said, adding that no wounded Israeli soldiers were reported.
An AFP photographer spotted a white car in Jaba with a bullet-riddled windshield on the driver’s side.
The vehicle had crashed into a building under construction and its rear end was completely destroyed.
The Palestinian Health Ministry named the two youths killed as Ezzedine Bassem Hamamra, 24, and Amjad Adnan Khaliliya, 23.
A third Palestinian, Yazen Samer Jaabari, 19, died of his wounds after he was shot by Israeli forces earlier this month, the ministry said.
He was wounded during an Israeli army operation on January 2 in the village of Kafr Dan, near Jenin, in which two other Palestinians were killed, according to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.
The latest deaths bring to 12 the number of Palestinians killed this year during violence in the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967.
Israeli forces have launched almost daily raids into the West Bank following a wave of deadly attacks in Israel last year.
The surge in bloodshed last year led to the deaths of at least 26 Israelis and 200 Palestinians in Israel and the West Bank, according to an AFP tally.
More than 150 of the deaths occurred in the West Bank.
