Deadly West Bank settler attacks on Palestinians follow Israeli boy's killing

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68830552


In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, a group of Israeli settlers storm a Palestinian village and, captured on CCTV, a masked man sets fire to a car parked in a garage, under the watch of at least three Israeli soldiers. The incident was part of a rampage by Israeli settlers that, according to local officials, killed four Palestinians over four days. The violence was triggered by the disappearance of 14-year-old Binyamin Ahimeir, who went missing on Friday after leaving his settler outpost to herd sheep near the Palestinian village of Mughayir, in the Ramallah area. His body was found a day later, and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said he had been killed in a "terrorist attack".

Amid the search for the boy, dozens of settlers, some of them armed, raided Mughayir. They burned homes and cars, and killed a 25-year-old man named Jihad Abu Alia with a shot in the chest, according to Palestinian officials. Sameh Abu Alia, his cousin, said Jihad, who would get married in June, was trying to prevent the settlers from storming the family's house. "It wasn't the first time settlers attacked us. But we weren't expecting a huge number of them," he said. "They shot at the water tanks, the electricity network, and the internet. They were planning to isolate us from the outside world."

Settlers, armed with guns and stones, returned to the village on Saturday. Shaul Golan, a photographer for the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, said he was attacked by a group of between 20 to 30 people, some of whom were armed and wearing IDF uniforms, as he hid under a table in one of the burned houses while trying to cover the rampage. "They beat me mercilessly, breaking my finger and taking my bag to burn all of the photography equipment inside," he said in an interview published on the newspaper's website. "I laid on the floor, as every one of them kicked me in the head and stomach… They had hate in their eyes."


Violence spread to other areas. In the village of Dayr Dibwan, CCTV video shared by Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group which monitors West Bank violence, showed masked settlers entering a private garage and setting a vehicle on fire, while Israeli soldiers stand watching. Responding to the footage, the IDF said the incident was being examined and that the soldiers would "be dealt with accordingly", Reuters reported. In nearby Beitin on Saturday a 17-year-old boy, Omar Hamed, was killed after being hit by a bullet in the head in an attack by a group of 30 settlers who had been accompanied by Israeli forces, Palestinian officials said.

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