Israeli settler gunfire kills two including teen: Palestinian Authority
The Palestinian Authority said Israeli settler gunfire killed two Palestinians, including a 14-year-old boy, on Tuesday in the central occupied West Bank, while the Israeli military said it was reviewing the incident.
An AFP photographer saw the bodies at the morgue of the hospital in Ramallah where they were taken soon after the incident.
“Two martyrs were killed by settler gunfire in Al-Mughayyir, east of Ramallah… and three others were injured,” the Palestinian health ministry said, confirming the deaths previously reported by the Red Crescent.
The health ministry identified the dead Palestinians as 14-year-old Aws Hamdi Al-Naasan and 32-year-old Jihad Marzouq Abu Naim, both from Al-Mughayyir.
At the hospital, distraught and weeping relatives crowded around the bodies, which were draped in Palestinian flags.
The Israeli military said it was “aware of the claim regarding two Palestinians who were killed, and additional injuries” in Al-Mughayyir and added that the circumstances of the incident were under review.
It said soldiers were dispatched to the area “following a report of rock hurling towards an Israeli vehicle carrying several civilians, including a reserve soldier, who exited the vehicle and opened fire at suspects in the area”.
It said troops arrived at the scene and “acted to disperse the violent confrontation”, without providing further details.
– ‘Intent to cause harm’ –
The mayor of Al-Mughayyir, Amin Abu Alia, told AFP by phone that Tuesday’s shooting took place near the local boys’ school.
He said he arrived at the scene at around 11:45 am, just after the shooting began and saw at least 10 settlers and between five and seven Israeli soldiers.
“The attack took place at the entrance to the village; there are no Israeli civilians, no settlements and no Israeli roads. Any settler who reaches this area does so with the intent to cause harm,” he said.
Kazem Al-Hajj Mohammad, a village resident who said he witnessed the incident, told AFP outside the hospital that “settlers attacked the school and began firing live ammunition at it”.
“The army then immediately joined them, opening fire as we were trying to evacuate the students,” he said.
In a post on X that included a photo of the slain teenager, the office of Palestinian prime minister Mohammad Mustafa asked: “How many more lives must be lost before this ends?”
An AFP journalist saw several dozen men chant violent anti-Jewish slogans as they left the hospital carrying the two bodies.
The recent surge in settler attacks against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank has drawn criticism from Israel’s opposition.
They accuse the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right allies of turning a blind eye to acts of “Jewish terrorism” in the Palestinian territory or even of supporting them.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and violence there has risen sharply since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel that triggered the Gaza war.
According to an AFP tally based on Palestinian health ministry figures, Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 1,064 Palestinians — many of them militants, but also scores of civilians — in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war.
Official Israeli figures say at least 46 Israelis, including soldiers and civilians, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations in the same period.