RamAllah (Reuters) – A 19-year-old Palestinian was killed during a settler attack on the occupied West Bank town of Huwara on Friday, Palestinian authorities said, amid a surge in settler violence in the territory.
Accounts differed as to whether the victim, university student Labib Dumaidi, had been shot by an Israeli settler or by soldiers.
The official Palestinian news agency WAFA, citing what it said were local sources, said a group of settlers had entered the town and damaged homes and other property. One of them shot Dumaidi who later died of his wounds in hospital, it said.
The Israeli military said dozens of settlers and townspeople had thrown rocks at each other. It said soldiers had fired at a Palestinian who threw a brick at them and that “a hit was identified”.
A spokesperson said the military was unaware of any settler having fired a weapon during the confrontations.
In testimony Israeli human rights group Yesh Din collected from Dumaidi’s family, relatives said he was shot in the chest while standing on the rooftop of their home trying to ward off settlers who were hurling rocks at the house and vandalising the family’s car.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry condemned Dumaidi’s killing as a “heinous crime” and called for international intervention to stop armed settler militias.
The West Bank, among the territories where Palestinians seek statehood, has experienced a surge of violence in recent months amid expanding Jewish settlements and an almost decade-old impasse in U.S.-sponsored peacemaking.
In the first eight months of 2023, an average of three settler-related incidents occurred per day, the highest daily average of settler-related incidents affecting Palestinians since the United Nations started recording this data in 2006.
Huwara is surrounded by settlements that cut off Palestinians from each other and from their land.
Located on the main road connecting the northern city of Nablus to Ramallah and Jerusalem, the town has become the scene of repeated settler assaults on Palestinians, military restrictions and shooting attacks on Israelis.
On Thursday, a suspected Palestinian gunman shot at a car in Huwara carrying three members of an Israeli family who were unharmed. Israeli security forces tracked him down and killed him.
This came hours after two Palestinian gunmen and five Israeli soldiers were wounded in separate clashes.
