Palestinian woman killed by Israeli forces at West Bank checkpoint

Israeli border guards Saturday shot dead a Palestinian woman who allegedly approached them with a knife at a checkpoint in the occupied West Bank, police said. 

The Palestinian Authority's prisons ministry identified the dead woman as Ibtissam Kaabneh, a Palestinian who was arrested and sentenced to 18 months in prison by Israel in 2016.

Israeli police said the woman kept walking towards the guards at Qalandiya crossing between Israel and the West Bank.

She was aged 28 and from Aqabat Jabr near the West Bank town of Jericho, police said.

On Friday, 15-year-old Palestinian Mohammad Said Hamayel was killed after Israeli forces shot him near Beita, south of Nablus, the Palestinian Red Crescent said. 

The Palestinian health ministry said six others had been wounded by live gunfire.

According to Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, Israeli forces opened live fire during "a public protest against Israel's construction of a colonial settlement outpost near the village".

The teenager's death comes a day after three Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces on an alleged mission to arrest "suspected terrorists" in the occupied West Bank.

Violence in the West Bank increased in early May, with at least 30 Palestinians killed by Israeli fire.

That came amid a flare-up in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem that led to 11 days of an Israeli campaign of relentless bombardment on the Gaza Strip.

West Bank villages often hold Friday demonstrations against land confiscation, house demolitions and Israeli settlements deemed illegal under international law. The events are often responded to by Israeli army firing teargas and live gunfire.

Some 475,000 Jewish settlers live in the occupied West Bank in settlements deemed illegal under Israeli and international law. The West Bank is home to more than 2.8 million Palestinians.

Israel forces have been slammed by rights group and activists for displaying an "appalling disregard for human life" by using reckless and unlawful lethal force against Palestinians.

Amnesty International has repeatedly urged an end to  the "worrying rise in unlawful killings by Israeli forces, fostered by a culture of impunity".