Hebron: Pictures show moment 18-year-old Palestinian woman shot dead by Israeli soldier

A Palestinian woman who was shot and wounded by Israeli troops after allegedly attempting to stab a soldier at a checkpoint in the divided city of Hebron has died, according to local sources.

The woman, named as 18-year-old university student Hadeel Salah al-Hashlamun, was wounded at a checkpoint that separates the Israeli and Palestinian part of the West Bank city. An Israeli spokeswoman said the young Palestinian "attempted to stab an [Israeli] soldier at a military position in Hebron" and the Israeli troops responded by firing "at her lower extremities". The army said the woman received medical care by the forces on the scene and was later transferred to the hospital.

However, a video posted by Palestinian news agency PalMedia shows the woman through the checkpoint's bars seemingly lying on the ground without assistance and being left to bleed for several minutes. Only after a while are Israeli soldiers are seen pulling her out of camera view. The video could not be independently verified.

Pictures posted on Facebook by the Youth Against Settlements group allegedly show the sequence of the incident. A full-veiled, long-sleeved black-clad woman with a bag is seen approaching the checkpoint; two Israeli soldiers seem to take aim at her, standing at a short distance, with rifles; in the next pictures, the woman is seen laying on the ground.

Issa Amer, from Youth Against Settlement, told IBTimes UK that the pictures are evidence that the woman did not attack the soldiers and "wasn't even threatening to attack".

"In occasion of Yom Kippur Jewish holiday, Israel has restricted access to checkpoints in Hebron bringing in the most religiously fanatic soldiers," he said.

"The woman used to pass through that checkpoint every day. Yesterday [22 September] Israeli soldiers started screaming in Hebrew to open the bag but she did not understand," Issa said, quoting eyewitnesses."The soldiers shouted that she had a knife. As soon as she moved, trying to back down, the soldiers shot her on the leg. Then, they shot her on the chest."

"I know those soldiers because they kept me 45 minutes at a checkpoint saying that I was trying to attack them. They lied to the Israeli army spokeswoman," Issa said.

Issa claimed that Hashlamon was shot 15 times as demonstrated by the bullets found on her body.

"We also found several holes on the ground which were shot from top down, which means that the soldiers kept shooting while she was already laying on the ground," he said.

The young Palestinian was a university student from a wealthy family and her father, a doctor in Hebron hospital, is well-known in the divided city.

Another video posted by Shehab News Agency shows three Israeli soldiers checking the pulse of a woman who may or may not be the young student before standing up. After the shooting, Hashlamon was taken to an Israeli hospital where she died of her wounds. She was reportedly shot several times in her lower extremities and in her chest.

"The young Palestinian woman who arrived this morning to the hospital's headquarters in Jerusalem, suffering from a very serious injury, died from her wounds this afternoon," the hospital said in a statement.

The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) has called for an international investigation to probe the killing of the student.

"The photos of the girl clearly showed that the life of the soldier, who shot her only because she stood in front of him, wasn't in danger," said the PNA statement, adding that "this shows the Israeli official story that she tried to stab the soldier was untrue".

Tensions are high ahead of the Jewish Yom Kippur holiday, which began on 22 September. The Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday begins on 23 September, running until 27 September. The Israeli army is to seal off the occupied West Bank and Gaza during the holidays as it did in previous years.

Riots erupted between Palestinians and Israeli police in Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in Islam after Mecca and Medina, and the flashpoint for violence in divided Jerusalem for decades.

24 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in 2015, according to UN figures.