World
US announces visa restrictions on Chinese officials over ‘forcible assimilation’ of Tibetan children
The United States has announced visa restrictions on Chinese officials for their alleged involvement in “forcible assimilation of more than one million Tibetan children” in government-run boarding schools.
The US state department made the announcement on Tuesday without providing any details or naming any officials.
Also read: China says PM Hasina's remarks against sanctions reflect a ‘large part of int'l community's mind’
“These coercive policies (forcible assimilation) seek to eliminate Tibet’s distinct linguistic, cultural, and religious traditions among younger generations of Tibetans,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
Also read: BRICS Summit 2023 unveils potential geopolitical paradigm shift: Modern Diplomacy
He urged the Chinese government to cease “repressive assimilation policies”, both in Tibet and other parts of the country.
“We will continue to work with our allies and partners to highlight these actions and promote accountability,” Secretary of State Blinken said.
Biden to attend next month's G-20 summit in New Delhi
The White House announced Tuesday that President Joe Biden will attend next month's Group of 20 summit in New Delhi, India.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that meetings—and Biden's talks with leaders on the sidelines of the summit—will focus on climate change, Russia's war in Ukraine and more. The White House has not said which leaders the president will hold individual meetings with but China's President Xi Jinping and Saudi Arabia's crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, are among officials from leading global economies who have been invited to attend the leaders' meeting
Also read: India's G20 presidency brings immense opportunities for South Asia to address economic challenges: ICCB
"He'll discuss a range of joint efforts to tackle global issues from the clean energy transition and combating climate change to mitigating the economic and social impacts of Russia's war in Ukraine to increasing the capacity of multilateral development banks, including the World Bank, to better fight poverty and take on the significant transnational challenges that are afflicting countries across the world," Sullivan said.
The leaders' summit is scheduled to take place Sept. 9 -10.
Also read: PM looking forward to attending G20 Summit in India in September
Sullivan said Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Jakarta from Sept. 4 to 7 to take part in the US-ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) summit and East Asia Summit to engage with Indo-Pacific leaders.
Rescuers save 8 people trapped in cable car dangling above canyon in Pakistan
Army commandos using helicopters and a makeshift chairlift rescued eight people from a broken cable car dangling hundreds of meters (feet) above a canyon Tuesday in a remote part of Pakistan, authorities said.
The six children and two adults became trapped earlier in the day when one of the cables snapped while the passengers were crossing a river canyon in Battagram district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The children had been on their way to school.
Also read: Pakistan mounts efforts to rescue 6 children and 2 men trapped in a chairlift
Because helicopters could not fly after sunset, rescuers eventually shifted from an airborne effort to a risky operation that involved using one cable that was still intact to approach the car with the chairlift.
Footage on TV stations showed a child in a harness being pulled to safety. The commandos' rope could be seen swaying in the wind against the mountainous landscape.
An expert described the helicopter rescues as extremely delicate because the wind generated by the helicopter blades could further weaken the remaining cables holding the car aloft.
Also read: A bus hits a van and catches fire in Pakistan, killing 20 people and injuring 11 others
Relatives of those trapped prayed for more than 12 hours while anxiously watching the operation unfold. The rescue also transfixed the country as Pakistanis crowded around televisions in offices, shops, restaurants and hospitals.
As the rescued children were handed over to their families, most burst into tears, said Nazir Ahmed, a senior police officer who was present in the area where the air and ground rescue mission was launched.
"Everyone was praying for this moment," he said.
Also read: Death toll from train derailment in Pakistan rises to 30 with 60 others injured
Bilal Faizi, a spokesperson for the state-run emergency service, said food and water were supplied to the car earlier in the day.
According to Pakistani TV stations, some of those trapped were in contact with their families by cellphone. Authorities said the two adults were consoling the children, who were between the ages of 11 and 15.
Villagers frequently use cable cars to get around Pakistan's mountainous regions. But the cars are often poorly maintained, and every year people die or are injured while traveling in them.
Helicopters were sent to attempt to pluck the people from the cable car but only after the group spent six hours precariously suspended 350 meters (1,150 feet) above ground, according to Taimoor Khan, a spokesman for the disaster management authority.
Pakistan's caretaker prime minister, Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, wrote on X, the service formerly known as Twitter, that he had ordered safety inspections of the country's cable cars and chairlifts.
Several helicopters hovered above the scene, and ambulances gathered on the ground.
Tipu Sultan, a retired army brigadier and defense expert, warned that the helicopters themselves could make the situation worse but that the commandos would be well aware of that risk. Khan added that the pilots were flying "carefully."
In 2017, 10 people were killed when a cable car fell into a ravine hundreds of meters (feet) deep in the popular mountain resort of Murree after its cable broke.
Firefighters in Greece have discovered the bodies of 18 people in an area with a major wildfire
Firefighters found the burnt bodies of 18 people, believed to have been migrants who had crossed the nearby border with Turkey, in an area of northeastern Greece ravaged by a major wildfire that raged for a fourth day Tuesday.
The discovery in the Avantas area near the city of Alexandroupolis came as hundreds of firefighters battled dozens of wildfires across the country amid gale-force winds. On Monday, two people died and two firefighters were injured in separate fires in northern and central Greece.
With their hot, dry summers, southern European countries are particularly prone to wildfires. Another major blaze was burning across Tenerife in Spain's Canary Islands for a week, although no injuries or damage to homes was reported.
Also read: Heat, wildfires and floods make summer of 2023 "a summer of extremes"
European Union officials have blamed climate change for the increasing frequency and intensity of wildfires in Europe, noting that 2022 was the second-worst year for wildfire damage on record after 2017.
In Greece, police activated the country's Disaster Victim Identification Team to identify the 18 bodies, which were found near a shack in the Avantas area, fire department spokesman Ioannis Artopios said.
"Given that there have been no reports of a missing person or missing residents from the surrounding areas, the possibility is being investigated that these are people who had entered the country illegally," Artopios said.
Also read: Death toll from devastating Maui fire reaches 101, Hawaii governor says
Alexandroupolis is near the border with Turkey, along a route often taken by people fleeing poverty and conflict in the Middle East, Asia and Africa and seeking to enter the European Union.
Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou voiced deep sorrow at the deaths.
"We mourn their loss ... (and) the destruction of nature, (and) we are saddened by our inability to avert it," she said in a statement. "We must urgently take effective initiatives to ensure that this bleak reality does not become the new normality."
Avantas, like many nearby villages and settlements, had been under evacuation orders, with push alerts in Greek and English sent to all mobile phones in the region.
Also read: Climate change keeps making wildfires and smoke worse. Scientists call it the 'new abnormal'
Overnight, a massive wall of flames raced through forests toward Alexandroupolis, prompting authorities to evacuate eight more villages and the city's hospital as flames reddened the sky.
About 65 of the more than 100 patients in the hospital were transported to a ferry boat in the city's port, while others were taken to other hospitals in northern Greece. The ferry later took 26 the patients to the port town of Kavala, to be transferred to another hospital.
Deputy Health Minister Dimitris Vartzopoulos, speaking on Greece's Skai television, said smoke and ash in the air around the Alexandrouplolis hospital were the main reasons behind the decision to evacuate the facility.
"We evacuated within four hours," he said.
The coast guard said patrol boats and private vessels evacuated an additional 40 people by sea from beaches near Alexandroupolis.
In the northeastern Evros border region, a fire was burning through forest in a protected national park, with satellite imagery showing smoke blanketing much of northern and western Greece.
New fires broke out in several parts of the country Tuesday, including in woodland northwest of Athens and an industrial area on the capital's western fringes.
Also read: PM Hasina writes to US President Biden expressing deep sadness over Maui wildfire devastation
Small explosions echoed from the industrial area of Aspropyrgos as flames reached warehouses and factories. Authorities shut down a highway and ordered the evacuation of nearby settlements.
With firefighting forces stretched to the limit, Greece appealed for help from the European Union's civil protection mechanism.
Five water-dropping planes from Croatia, Germany and Sweden, and a helicopter, 58 firefighters and nine water tanks from the Czech Republic flew to Greece Tuesday, while 56 Romanian firefighters and two aircraft from Cyprus arrived Monday. French firefighters helped tackle a blaze on the island of Evia on Monday.
"We are mobilizing actually almost one-third of the aircraft we have in the rescEU fleet," said EU spokesman Balazs Ujvari.
The fire risk level for several regions, including the wider Athens area, was listed as "extreme" for a second day Tuesday. Authorities banned public access to mountains and forests in those regions until at least Wednesday morning and ordered military patrols.
Also read: Out-of-control wildfires cause evacuations in western Canada
In Spain, firefighters battled to control a wildfire burning for a week on the popular Canary Islands tourist destination of Tenerife. It is estimated that the blaze, which has scorched 150 square kilometers (59 square miles), has already burnt a third of Tenerife's woodlands.
More than 12,000 people were evacuated during the past week. Authorities said Tuesday that 1,500 have been able to return to their homes. Authorities have described the fire as the worst in decades on the Atlantic archipelago.
Large parts of Spain were under alert for wildfires as temperatures reached more than 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit). While Spain's south often has extremely high temperatures, the country's weather agency issued an alert for the northern Basque Country, where temperatures were forecast to reach 42 degrees Celsius (107 degrees Fahrenheit) Wednesday.
Greece's deadliest wildfire killed 104 people in 2018, at a seaside resort near Athens that residents had not been warned to evacuate. Authorities have since erred on the side of caution, issuing swift mass evacuation orders whenever inhabited areas are threatened.
Last month, a wildfire on the island of Rhodes forced the evacuation of some 20,000 tourists. Days later, two air force pilots were killed when their water-dropping plane crashed while diving low to tackle a blaze on Evia.
In Italy, authorities evacuated 700 people from homes and a campsite on the Tuscan island of Elba after a fire broke out late Monday, while in Turkey authorities evacuated nine villages in northwestern Canakkale province.
According to the Italian Society of Environmental Geology, more than 1,100 fires in Europe this summer have consumed 2,842 square kilometers (about 1,100 square miles), well above an average of 724 fires a year recorded from 2006-2022. The fires have removed wooded areas capable of absorbing 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide a year.
"When we add the fires in Canada, the United States, Africa, Asia and Australia to those in Europe, it seems that the situation is getting worse every year," said SIGEA president Antonello Fiore.
Pakistan mounts efforts to rescue 6 children and 2 men trapped in a chairlift
Pakistani emergency workers launched a rescue operation to try and save six children and two men trapped in a chairlift after one of its cables snapped off on Tuesday, leaving it dangling high above ground in the country's northwest.
The chairlift was installed across a river canyon, connecting villages in Battagram district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. It was used by local villagers to cross the river and shorten the distance to nearby schools, government offices and other businesses.
Taimoor Khan, a spokesman for the disaster management authority, said the chairlift had been dangling 350 meters (1,150 feet) above ground for six hours before a helicopter was dispatched to the site to try and pluck the eight out of the chairlift.
Pakistan's caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar ordered the helicopter rescue, Khan said.
Many villagers in Pakistan's mountainous regions use such chairlifts to shorten distances and travel and an unspecified number of people die or are injured each year in incidents involving the poorly maintained chairlifts.
Ten people were killed when a cable car lift installed by local villagers in the popular mountain resort of Murree broke and fell into a ravine hundreds of feet deep in 2017.
Europe's sweeping rules for tech giants are about to kick in
Google, Facebook, TikTok and other Big Tech companies operating in Europe are facing one of the most far-reaching efforts to clean up what people encounter online.
The first phase of the European Union’s groundbreaking new digital rules will take effect this week. The Digital Services Act is part of a suite of tech-focused regulations crafted by the 27-nation bloc — long a global leader in cracking down on tech giants.
Read: Putin profits off US and European reliance on Russian nuclear fuel
The DSA, which the biggest platforms must start following Friday, is designed to keep users safe online and stop the spread of harmful content that's either illegal or violates a platform's terms of service, such as promotion of genocide or anorexia. It also looks to protect Europeans' fundamental rights like privacy and free speech.
Some online platforms, which could face billions in fines if they don't comply, have already started making changes.
Here's a look at what's happening this week:
WHICH PLATFORMS ARE AFFECTED?So far, 19. They include eight social media platforms: Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Snapchat.
There are five online marketplaces: Amazon, Booking.com, China's Alibaba AliExpress and Germany's Zalando.
Read: July was the hottest month on record by far, European scientists confirm
Mobile app stores Google Play and Apple's App Store are subject, as are Google's Search and Microsoft's Bing search engine.
Google Maps and Wikipedia round out the list.
WHAT ABOUT OTHER ONLINE COMPANIES?The EU’s list is based on numbers submitted by the platforms. Those with 45 million or more users — or 10% of the EU’s population — will face the DSA’s highest level of regulation.
Brussels insiders, however, have pointed to some notable omissions from the EU's list, like eBay, Airbnb, Netflix and even PornHub. The list isn't definitive, and it's possible other platforms may be added later on.
Any business providing digital services to Europeans will eventually have to comply with the DSA. They will face fewer obligations than the biggest platforms, however, and have another six months before they must fall in line.
Citing uncertainty over the new rules, Meta Platforms has held off launching its Twitter rival, Threads, in the EU.
WHAT'S CHANGING?Platforms have started rolling out new ways for European users to flag illegal online content and dodgy products, which companies will be obligated to take down quickly and objectively.
Read: ‘Made in Bangladesh’ to be showcased in Europe
Amazon opened a new channel for reporting suspected illegal products and is providing more information about third-party merchants.
TikTok gave users an “additional reporting option” for content, including advertising, that they believe is illegal. Categories such as hate speech and harassment, suicide and self-harm, misinformation or frauds and scams, will help them pinpoint the problem.
Then, a “new dedicated team of moderators and legal specialists” will determine whether flagged content either violates its policies or is unlawful and should be taken down, according to the app from Chinese parent company ByteDance.
TikTok says the reason for a takedown will explained to the person who posted the material and the one who flagged it, and decisions can be appealed.
TikTok users can turn off systems that recommend videos based on what a user has previously viewed. Such systems have been blamed for leading social media users to increasingly extreme posts. If personalized recommendations are turned off, TikTok's feeds will instead suggest videos to European users based on what's popular in their area and around the world.
The DSA prohibits targeting vulnerable categories of people, including children, with ads.
Snapchat said advertisers won't be able to use personalization and optimization tools for teens in the EU and U.K. Snapchat users who are 18 and older also would get more transparency and control over ads they see, including "details and insight" on why they're shown specific ads.
TikTok made similar changes, stopping users 13 to 17 from getting personalized ads “based on their activities on or off TikTok.”
IS THERE PUSHBACK?Zalando, a German online fashion retailer, has filed a legal challenge over its inclusion on the DSA's list of the largest online platforms, arguing that it's being treated unfairly.
Nevertheless, Zalando is launching content flagging systems for its website even though there's little risk of illegal material showing up among its highly curated collection of clothes, bags and shoes.
Read: Europe gripped by extreme weather as 'era of global boiling' arrives
The company has supported the DSA, said Aurelie Caulier, Zalando's head of public affairs for the EU.
“It will bring loads of positive changes” for consumers, she said. But “generally, Zalando doesn’t have systemic risk (that other platforms pose). So that’s why we don’t think we fit in that category."
Amazon has filed a similar case with a top EU court.
WHAT HAPPENS IF COMPANIES DON'T FOLLOW THE RULES?Officials have warned tech companies that violations could bring fines worth up to 6% of their global revenue — which could amount to billions — or even a ban from the EU. But don't expect penalties to come right away for individual breaches, such as failing to take down a specific video promoting hate speech.
Instead, the DSA is more about whether tech companies have the right processes in place to reduce the harm that their algorithm-based recommendation systems can inflict on users. Essentially, they'll have to let the European Commission, the EU's executive arm and top digital enforcer, look under the hood to see how their algorithms work.
Read: A cause whose time has come: Conference calls for European Parliament’s recognition of 1971 Bangladesh Genocide
EU officials “are concerned with user behavior on the one hand, like bullying and spreading illegal content, but they’re also concerned about the way that platforms work and how they contribute to the negative effects,” said Sally Broughton Micova, an associate professor at the University of East Anglia.
That includes looking at how the platforms work with digital advertising systems, which could be used to profile users for harmful material like disinformation, or how their livestreaming systems function, which could be used to instantly spread terrorist content, said Broughton Micova, who's also academic co-director at the Centre on Regulation in Europe, a Brussels-based think tank.
Under the rules, the biggest platforms will have to identify and assess potential systemic risks and whether they're doing enough to reduce them. These risk assessments are due by the end of August and then they will be independently audited.
The audits are expected to be the main tool to verify compliance — though the EU's plan has faced criticism for lacking details that leave it unclear how the process will work.
WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF THE WORLD?Europe's changes could have global impact. Wikipedia is tweaking some policies and modifying its terms of service to provide more information on “problematic users and content.” Those alterations won’t be limited to Europe, said the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation, which hosts the community-powered encyclopedia.
“The rules and processes that govern Wikimedia projects worldwide, including any changes in response to the DSA, are as universal as possible. This means that changes to our Terms of Use and Office Actions Policy will be implemented globally,” it said in a statement.
It's going to be hard for tech companies to limit DSA-related changes, said Broughton Micova, adding that digital ad networks aren’t isolated to Europe and that social media influencers can have global reach.
The regulations are “dealing with multichannel networks that operate globally. So there is going to be a ripple effect once you have kind of mitigations that get taken into place," she said.
Cyprus rescues 115 Syrian migrants aboard 3 separate boats over the last three days
Cyprus police on Monday rescued 18 Syrian migrants after their boat started taking on water some 3.5 miles off the Mediterranean island nation's southeastern coast.
Police said the 11 men, three unescorted minors, one woman and her three children had set sail from Tartus, Syria and were brought ashore aboard a police patrol vessel.
State-run Cyprus News Agency reported that the woman and her children were taken to the hospital after one of the kids had fainted. The migrants' boat reportedly sank.
The remaining 14 migrants were taken to a reception center on the western fringes of the capital, Nicosia. A 23-year-old man was taken into custody on suspicion of facilitating illegal entry, police said.
The latest rescue comes after police rescued another 97 Syrian migrants aboard two boats over the last 72 hours.
Police said they intercepted on Sunday a 40-foot boat with 57 men, six women and 23 children aboard some 14 miles off the island's southeastern coast. All 86 people, who departed from Lebanon, were taken ashore by a police patrol vessel and transported to the reception center.
Four men aged between 18-30 were detained, and face charges of facilitating the illegal entry of migrants, police said.
On Saturday, police intercepted another small boat with 11 migrants aboard some six miles off Cyprus' southeastern tip. The 10 men and one unescorted minor had departed from Lebanon aboard their 11-foot boat, according to police. Three men aged between 31-47 were also detained.
Cyprus' Interior Ministry had noted an increase in seaborne arrivals of Syrian migrants in recent months, although asylum applications have dropped significantly as a result of government actions to deter such arrivals, especially from sub-Saharan Africa.
According to official figures, asylum applications in June and July reached a combined 1,285 this year – less than a third than the same period last year.
To discourage more migrant arrivals, the Cypriot government decided to exclude migrants who arrived after Jan. 1st of this year from eligibility for relocation to another EU country.
Nearly 2,000 unaccompanied immigrant minors landed in Rome over the weekend
Nearly 2,000 unaccompanied migrant minors landed in Italy at the weekend, the interior ministry said Monday.
Some 1,902 migrant children without any parent came to Italy's southern shores, it said.
Read: All Alpine glaciers above zero, says CNR
Some 12,188 of them have arrived since the start of the year, the ministry said, adding that overall migrant arrivals have been 105,449, over double the 50,759 of the same period last year.
Read: Migrant sea arrivals more than double so far in 2023
In August alone, it said, some 16,512 migrants have landed in Italy. (ANSA).
BRICS leaders to discuss expansion as Global South countries line up to join
The upcoming 2023 BRICS summit logo features a sun that beams light in five colors: green, blue, orange, red and yellow, representing the current five members of the group.
This year's summit, to be held in South Africa from Aug. 22 to 24, champions the theme "Partnership for Mutually Accelerated Growth, Sustainable Development and Inclusive Multilateralism."
That spirit, BRICS officials say, has sparked the interest of some 40 countries from the Global South in joining the group.
GROWING INTEREST
At the forthcoming summit, leaders are expected to discuss the BRICS group's expansion, including the admission criteria and the guiding principles, Carlos Maria Correa, executive director of the South Center, told Xinhua in a recent interview.
"Twenty-two countries have formally approached BRICS countries to become full members. There's an equal number of countries that have been informally asking about becoming BRICS members," said Anil Sooklal, South Africa's BRICS ambassador.
Read: PM Hasina off to South Africa to attend the 15th BRICS Summit in Johannesburg
Algeria is among the latest countries to show their interest. "We officially applied to join the BRICS group, and we sent a letter asking to be shareholder members in the bank (New Development Bank)," Ennahar TV, an Arabic broadcaster, quoted Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune as saying on July 22.
According to Mainichi Shimbun, a Japanese daily, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Nigeria and other oil-producing countries have also made applications. Once approved, the BRICS members will cover over half of the world's oil and gas resources.
"Many countries in the Global South have sought to come together in order to work towards a more just and inclusive world order ... BRICS inspires many countries to come together again in order to advance this vision," said Kenneth Creamer, a senior lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand, during a recent interview with Xinhua.
CHARM OF BRICS
In June this year, French President Emmanuel Macron once voiced his intention to attend the upcoming summit following his talks with South Africa's International Relations and Cooperation Minister Naledi Pandor.
This is where the charm of BRICS lies. The bloc has become a positive, stable and constructive force in international affairs.
Read: Russia, China look to advance agendas at BRICS summit of developing countries in South Africa
Several emerging economies, for instance, are financially distressed due to the IMF's stringent economic policies, said Deutsche Welle, Germany's state-owned broadcaster. It noted that the New Development Bank and the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement could support economies with payment difficulties.
"The New Development Bank is the most prominent achievement. It's also led to some increased trade between the countries, and won some international attention," said Daniel Bradlow, a University of Pretoria professor who has studied the group.
Above all, BRICS defends multipolarity and multilateralism, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said. By doing so, "BRICS countries are countering the concept of the Cold War and opening up the possibility of a more equitable and just international order that benefits the world."
"In an increasingly polarised world, BRICS is creating an enabling avenue for countries to fashion a more inclusive political and economic order," said Cavince Adhere, a Kenyan international relations scholar.
Many countries are tired of the United States' virtual domination of the global economy for decades, the Spanish website Rebelion said. Failure to comply with Washington's directives results in sanctions and financial blackmail.
BROADER PROSPECTS
With potential members down the road, cross-border trade within the group would become more efficient and catch the eye of more investors. The prospect of a BRICS-issued currency is a possibility.
Read: BRICS Summit: Hasina, Modi likely to hold meeting on the sidelines
"Its members would likely be able to produce a wider range of goods than any existing monetary union," said Foreign Policy, an American news publication, while remarking on the prospective currency. "Because each member of the BRICS grouping is an economic heavyweight in its own region, countries around the world would likely be willing to do business in the hypothetical money."
As Bangladesh, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Uruguay were added as new members of the BRICS New Development Bank, there's bound to be even fairer and more accessible international trade as the four countries lie on three continents.
"For new entrants, being part of BRICS could expand their diplomatic influence and open up lucrative trade and investment opportunities," the Washington Post said in a recent article.
In an interview with the TASS news agency, Nozipho Mxakato-Diseko, South Africa's permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva, said BRICS is happy to accept new members who express interest in joining.
"BRICS is committed to upholding multilateralism, reforming the global governance system and has consistently advocated for the developing countries to be fairly treated in the international arena," Gerald Mbanda, an Africa-China cooperation expert, told Xinhua.
"This is the reason I believe that the BRICS is undoubtedly an avenue for accelerated growth with increased trade and investment opportunities," Mbanda said.
17-year-old Palestinian killed during Israeli military raid in northern West Bank
Israeli security forces stormed into a town the northern West Bank on Tuesday, leading to fighting that killed a 17-year-old Palestinian, according to Palestinian health officials, the latest violence to grip the occupied territory.
The Israeli military conducted an arrest raid before dawn in the town of Zababdeh south of Jenin, local medics said. The Palestinian Health Ministry reported that 17-year-old Othman Abu Kharj was fatally shot in the head. The raid came as Israeli security forces were still searching for the Palestinian gunman that carried out a shooting in the northern Palestinian city of Hawara that killed an Israeli father and son on Saturday.
Read: Suspected Palestinian shooting attack at West Bank car wash kills 2 Israelis
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the raid in Zababdeh.
In the southern West Bank, the Israeli army captured two Palestinians who were suspected in a shooting the day before that killed an Israeli woman and seriously wounded a man. The Israeli military said the two suspects confessed during interrogation to involvement in the attack near the Palestinian city of Hebron. Israeli security forces said they also confiscated the rifle used to shoot at the car on Monday. A car without a license plate that was allegedly used to carry out the attack was found burned north of Hebron, said mayor of the town of Halhoul.
Read: Israeli military kills 3 alleged Palestinian gunmen in volatile West Bank
Palestinian media identified the two suspects arrested near Hebron as Saqer and Muhamad al-Shantir.
Nearly 180 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank since the start of this year, according to a tally by The Associated Press. Israel says most of the Palestinians killed were militants. But stone throwing youths protesting the incursions and those not involved in the confrontations have also been killed.
Some 30 people have been killed by Palestinian attacks against Israelis during that time.
Read: Israeli forces kill 2 wanted Palestinians in shootout in the occupied West Bank
Israel says the raids are meant to dismantle militant networks and thwart future attacks. Palestinians say the raids undermine their security forces, inspire more militancy and entrench Israeli control over lands they seek for a hoped-for future state. Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.