Two Palestinian brothers were shot dead by Israeli fire in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Monday during a confrontation with Jewish settlers over land, according to local residents and the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
The shooting deaths come amid growing tensions over settler activity and violence in the territory, which has intensified,since the strikes on Iran began on Saturday, according to Israelis and Palestinians who monitor settler activity.
A local resident who witnessed one of the shootings and the Palestinian health ministry said Jewish settlers killed the brothers in the village of Qaryut, in the northern West Bank. Villagers said five other members of the brothers’ extended family were injured.
Muhammad Al-Boom, 20, a Qaryut resident and a paramedic, said he was by the side of one brother, Muhammad Taha, who stepped out of his house to try to prevent the settlers from entering his property. Video footage distributed by a local group showed about a dozen masked settlers at the scene.
Mr. al-Boom said he then saw Mr. Taha get shot in the head.
“I was right next to him when he fell,” Mr. al-Boom recalled in a phone interview, adding that he tried to provide first aid. “It was a settler who shot him,” he said. “I saw him. He was five meters away.”
A settler leader, Elisha Yered, who has been sanctioned by several countries for extremism and violence, suggested on social media that security personnel may have fired “in self-defense” after Palestinian villagers threw stones at settlers working with a bulldozer to carve a path through an olive grove on the edge of Qaryut.
The Israeli military, which controls the area, said the identity of the shooter was under investigation.
In a statement, the military said it “condemns this incident and views it with the utmost severity.”
Officials from the Binyamin council, which represents Jewish settlements in the area, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Palestinian health ministry identified the victims as Muhammad Taha Muammar, 52, and Fahim Taha Muammar, 48. Both were killed “by settler gunfire,” the ministry said.
Mr. al-Boom said the clash, which began Monday morning, intensified around noon, after villagers spotted a bulldozer leveling a path through an olive grove. Palestinians hurled stones to try to stop their advance, and the settlers fired to force them to retreat to the closest houses, which belonged to the Taha family, according to villagers. Mr. al-Boom described a scene of chaos as settlers threw stones at the Taha family’s homes and broke windows.
Bashar Qaryouti, a resident of the village, who monitors settlement activity in the northern West Bank, said by phone that soldiers fired tear gas to disperse the Palestinians. Then, he said, shots were fired, “mostly by the settlers.”
Mr. al-Boom said he saw that Fahim Taha had been shot in the face and that a third Taha brother had been shot in the leg.
There were soldiers around, Mr. al-Boom said, but, he added, “they did nothing to stop the shooting.”
The events in Qaryut were the latest in a broader campaign by settlers and their far-right supporters in the Israeli government to strengthen Jewish control across the West Bank as part of a process of de facto annexation.
Since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the war that ensued, the area has seen a surge of displacements, settlement expansion and escalating violence against Palestinians at the hands of extremist settlers.
Palestinians consider the West Bank lands to form the core of a future Palestinian state, and like much of the world, view all settlement activity as a violation of international law, while many Israelis consider the territory as disputed, not occupied, and as part of their homeland.
Opponents of the Israeli occupation say Israeli soldiers rarely intervene when settlers are attacking Palestinians.
On Friday, in Qusra, a Palestinian village northeast of Qaryut, masked Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians and other Israeli solidarity activists, injuring two of the Israeli activists, who were taken to the hospital for treatment, according to the Israeli military.
Isabel Kershner, a senior correspondent for The Times in Jerusalem, has been reporting on Israeli and Palestinian affairs since 1990.
The post Palestinian Brothers Killed as Settler Violence Surges in the West Bank appeared first on New York Times.
