Boy Reported Shot to Death in West Bank

NABLUS, West Bank — A 6-year-old Palestinian boy was shot to death Sunday when Israeli soldiers opened fire at stone throwers in a West Bank refugee camp, Palestinian medics said.

Palestinian witnesses said Mohammed Naim Isryda was shot in the chest while playing near his house in the Balata refugee camp in Nablus. Medics said he died shortly afterward.

An Israeli military source said soldiers opened fire after an explosive device was hurled at them and that the army was investigating claims of casualties.

The boy died just hours after Israeli soldiers arrested one of the West Bank’s top Hamas officials in Nablus.

Adnan Asfour, 39, is seen by Palestinians as a relative moderate in a group that is committed to Israel’s destruction and has spearheaded a suicide-bombing campaign that killed hundreds of Israelis in the last three years.

Asfour’s brother, Saeed, said Israeli troops burst into his apartment before dawn and lined residents up outside. They identified Adnan Asfour and took him away, he said. Asfour had said he was a political activist and spokesman for Hamas and had no military role.