Ten-year-old Palestinian boy shot dead by Israeli forces in West Bank

Muhammad al-Hallaq was playing football when soldiers arrived in the village

A 10-year-old Palestinian boy has been killed by Israeli forces in a village south of Hebron in the occupied West Bank.

The Israeli military says its soldiers opened fire on Thursday in response to "confrontations and rock-hurling" directed at them.

Residents of al-Rihiya say that Muhammad al-Hallaq and his friends had been playing football in a local schoolyard when they saw Israeli military vehicles and began to run.

"It's normal, they were afraid and ran back towards the village," the parent of another boy who was a witness told the BBC. "There was no threat, no provocation. Nothing."

The parent says that a soldier "opened fire erratically" from the back of a car. Muhammad was shot in the pelvis and rushed by car to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Footage shared on social media shows a large crowd gathered around an ambulance as the body of Muhammad was driven back to his village in the dark. His parents kissed his face as he lay on a stretcher.

Later Muhammad's body was carried off for burial.

In a video on Palestinian Maan news agency, his mother said that he had spent the day at school and had been showing off his new backpack before going out.

"He loved birds, and he told me he wanted to be a heart doctor, he used to say this all the time," she said tearfully, adding that he always got 'excellent' in his school grades.

The Israeli army said: "IDF [Israel Defense Forces] soldiers responded with fire toward the suspects in the rock-hurling. Hits were identified. No IDF injuries were reported, and the incident is under review."

Israel's Kan news website said that a preliminary investigation by the IDF battalion commander criticised the soldiers' conduct. According to its report, the commander found "the shooting deviated from the rules of engagement, and there was improper use of weaponry, with an emphasis on crowd-control measures."

"This is the second incident in the company in which shooting was carried out not in accordance with the rules of engagement," the commander is quoted as saying.

The BBC asked the IDF about the Kan report, but it declined to comment.

Separately the army said on Thursday that it had killed a man in Qabatiya near Jenin in the north of the West Bank, saying he had thrown an explosive device at Israeli troops who were not hurt.

The official Palestinian news agency, Wafa, identified the man as Mahdi Kmeil who was 20 and said that he had been shot dead during an Israeli military raid.

According to figures from the UN's humanitarian office (OCHA), some 200 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the start of the year, including about 40 children.