At least four Palestinians and two Israelis were killed in a confrontation in the West Bank on Friday morning, according to Palestinian health officials and the Israeli military, in one of the deadliest incidents in the territory of the past year.
The health ministry of the Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, said four people were killed and four others were wounded, including three in critical condition. The Israeli military said two Israelis were killed.
The exact details of the shooting remain unclear, with Israeli officials saying Israeli hikers were attacked, while Palestinian officials say settlers attacked a village.
The Israeli military said that soldiers were sent to the Palestinian village of Tell, close to the city of Nablus, after receiving a report about an attack on Israeli hikers in the area.
The military said that a group had opened fire and injured several Israelis after stealing the weapon of a security officer. The military referred to the group as “terrorists,” a term it often uses to refer to any Palestinian it deems a security threat.
It was unclear from the military’s statement whether the officer was an active-duty Israeli soldier. Later on Friday, the military said it had killed the person who attacked the Israelis.
Walid Zeidan, the mayor of Tell, gave a differing account based, he said, on conversations with Palestinian eyewitnesses.
“A number of settlers attacked the village,” Mr. Zeidan said in a phone interview. “It started with verbal altercations between our residents and the settlers and evolved into a physical fight before they started shooting” at village residents.
Mr. Zeidan said he had no information to suggest that residents of his community had opened fire on Israelis that morning.
Settler violence against Palestinians has surged in the West Bank in recent years, putting many of those who live in proximity to settlements on high alert for potential attacks. Most settlers, however, generally stay away from Palestinian cities and towns, fearful of confrontations with residents.
The Palestinians killed in the shooting were all from the Ramadan family, according to local Palestinian officials, who named them as Ibrahim, Jawad, Farouq and Imran.
Among those Israelis killed was Benayahu Melet, 32, a member of the security team for a settler outpost in the northern West Bank, according to the Shomron Regional Council, which represents Israeli settlers in the area. Maj. Yuval Ezra, 27, an artillery battery commander, was also killed, the military said.
Video footage of the incident appears to show four Israelis, including a soldier, pointing guns at a group of Palestinians on the outskirts of Tell, while boys wearing backpacks, some in kippas, watch from yards away. The location of the video was verified by The New York Times.
After one of the armed men shoves a Palestinian with his rifle, another man in a gray gown snatches the weapon as an Israeli soldier nearby fires warning shots.
In another video reviewed by The Times, the man in the gown, later identified by a local official as Farouq Ramadan, one of the four Palestinians who was killed, appears to be aiming the rifle at the man he took the weapon from. That man, who has fallen to the ground, pulls out a handgun.
On Friday afternoon, the offices of the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement that they had ordered the Israeli military to “conduct forceful action in villages acting as terrorist hubs.”
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Mr. Shtayyeh, the deputy mayor of Tell, said Israeli soldiers were blocking people from entering and exiting the village.
Ghassan Daghlas, the governor of Nablus and an official in the Palestinian Authority, said the military raided the Nablus Specialty Hospital. The Israeli military said soldiers arrested two people wounded in the shooting, who were brought to a hospital in the Nablus area.
Increased military activity would escalate an already tense situation, said Mr. Daghlas. “It won’t bring calm,” he added. “It won’t bring peace or solutions.”
Malachy Browne, Fatima AbdulKarim and Natan Odenheimer contributed reporting.
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