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DEIR AL-ASAL AL-TAHTA : Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian teenager in the southern West Bank on Wednesday, sources on both sides told AFP.

A Palestinian security source named the victim as 15-year-old Yussef Sami Shawamreh and said he was shot dead near the barrier southwest of Hebron.

Witnesses said the victim had been foraging for local plants when he was shot, but the army claimed he and two others had been vandalising the security fence.

The security sources initially told AFP the shooting took place near the Al-Ramadin village, but witnesses said it happened in Deir al-Asal al-Tahta. The Israeli army claimed troops had fired at Palestinians trying to damage the barrier.

Meanwhile, Israel granted final approval Wednesday for plans to build another 186 new homes in annexed Arab east Jerusalem, a city councillor told AFP.

Yosef Pepe Alalu said the city’s local planning council had granted “final approval” to plans to build 40 new homes in Pisgat Zeev and 146 in Har Homa.

Both are settlement neighbourhoods built on territory seized by Israel during the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed in a move never recognised by the international community.

The decision comes as US-led peace talks teeter on the brink of collapse ahead of an April 29 deadline, with Washington fighting an uphill battle to get the sides to agree to a framework proposal to extend the negotations to the year’s end.

So far, the Palestinians have flatly refused to countenance any extension, partly due to Israel’s ongoing settlement construction which has shown no let-up since talks began in late July 2013.

Lior Amihai, a spokesman for the settlement watchdog Peace Now, said “this is a sad decision by the Jerusalem municipality, with the government’s approval, to advance the construction of 186 new homes in east Jerusalem as the international community it trying to keep the negotiations alive.”