Palestinians mourned on Friday a 15-year-old boy who was killed in the occupied West Bank after being shot by an Israeli soldier, according to Palestinian health officials.

Yamen Hamed died overnight in the town of Silwad, near Ramallah, they said.

Samed Yousef Hamed said his son left home Thursday to hang out with friends.

Soon after, he learned the teen had been injured and Israel's army was preventing an ambulance from reaching him.

"I asked the army if the young man was alive or not, and they told me no, he was not alive," said Ahed Smirat the ambulance driver, adding that the soldiers held him up multiple times.

Israel’s military called Hamed a “terrorist,” and said troops had fired believing that he was holding an explosive but did not provide any evidence to support the claim.

A crowd of Palestinians marched during his funeral on Friday chanting "better death than humiliation".

Before he was laid to rest, women kissed and hugged the body of the boy, as they cried.

The shooting is the latest in a surge of military killings of Palestinian children in the West Bank that has accompanied a general upswing in violence in the territory since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

The Israeli military has stepped up operations in the occupied West Bank since the war erupted in 2023, on what it calls a crackdown on militants.

AP video shot by Imad Isseid