Israeli soldiers shoot dead Palestinian boy: Ministry

Ramallah: A Palestinian boy was killed by Israeli soldiers who fired rubber-coated bullets near Jerusalem on Tuesday, said the Palestinian health ministry.

"Mohiyeh al-Tabakhi, 12, was killed by shots fired by occupation soldiers in the Al-Ram area near Jerusalem," the ministry said in a statement.

The Palestinian suburb in the occupied West Bank near Jerusalem is cut off from the Holy City by the "separation wall" built by Israel.

The boy was hit in the chest by a rubber-coated bullet which caused cardiac arrest, medical sources were quoted by the Palestinian news agency WAFA as saying.

Israeli police said tear gas grenades and sound bombs had been used against demonstrators in the area.

"After being pelted with Molotov cocktails, police used tear gas and stun grenades to disperse the protesters," police spokeswoman Luba Samri told AFP.

"There was no live fire," she added.

Earlier on Tuesday, a Palestinian shot after stabbing two Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank died of his wounds, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Mustafa Baradeah, 51, lightly wounded the soldiers with a screwdriver before being shot, the army said. He also had a knife in his possession.

Monday`s attack took place near Al-Arroub, north of the flashpoint West Bank city of Hebron.

Baradeah was taken in critical condition to Shaare Zedek hospital in Jerusalem where he died later, a spokeswoman there said.

His brother Ibrahim was killed in April after carrying out an attack with an axe that left a soldier lightly wounded.

Baradeah was from Al-Arroub refugee camp, located about half way between Bethlehem and Hebron, where many of the attackers in a recent wave of violence have come from.

The violence in the Palestinian territories and Israel since last October has killed at least 217 Palestinians, 34 Israelis, two Americans, an Eritrean and a Sudanese, according to an AFP count.

Most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks, according to Israeli authorities.

Others were shot dead during protests and clashes, while some were killed by Israeli air strikes on the Islamist-controlled Gaza Strip.

In a briefing to parliament last week, the head of Israel`s Shin Bet internal security agency, Nadav Argaman, said that since October more than 300 attacks or attempted attacks had taken place, 180 of them with knives.