RAMALLAH: Armed Israeli settlers shot dead two Palestinians in the occupied West Bank on Monday, hours after Israeli forces killed a Palestinian teen during a military raid, officials said.

Monday’s violence brought to eight the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces or armed settlers since Friday, as Palestinian authorities reported increased settler rampages across the occupied West Bank.

Salah Bani Jaber, mayor of Aqraba, a town near the northern city of Nablus, witnessed Monday’s settler attack. He said some 50 settlers, many of them armed, attacked members of his community and fired at Palestinian youth, killing two of them and wounding others.

“There were Israeli soldiers at the scene who stood idly by watching the settlers,” he said.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said soldiers blocked its ambulances from reaching the area and tending to the wounded.

The Israeli military said it was looking into the incident.

Earlier on Monday, Israeli forces entered Nablus, killing 17-year-old Yazan Ishtayeh and wounding three other people, the Palestinian health ministry said.

Over the weekend, hundreds of armed Jewish settlers raided Palestinian villages near the city of Ramallah, blocking roads, setting houses and cars ablaze, and firing at civilians, medics and civilians said.

Israeli authorities said the escalation began after a 14-year-old Israeli went missing in the West Bank. His body was discovered on Saturday.

The US State Department condemned the killing of the Israeli teen and also said it was increasingly concerned by violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.

In one incident caught on video and published by Israeli rights group Yesh Din on Sunday, a group of masked settlers appeared to set fire to a car in a West Bank town under the watch of three Israeli soldiers.

In response to the video, the Israeli military said: “The behaviour of the soldiers in the video does not correspond to the values and orders of the army. The incident is being examined and the soldiers will be dealt with accordingly.” Violence in the occupied West Bank was already on the rise before the Gaza crisis unfolded on Oct 7. It has escalated since, with stepped-up Israeli military raids and settler violence. In addition to more than 33,000 Palestinians killed by Israel in Gaza, the Palestinian health ministry says 466 people in the West Bank have been killed by Israeli forces.

Palestinians have long aimed to establish an independent state in the territories Israel occupied in 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital. Most countries view Israeli settlements on occupied land as illegal, a view that Israel disputes.

Published in Dawn, April 16th, 2024