A Palestinian teenager was killed on Friday after Israeli settlers entered a village near the West Bank city of Hebron, local officials said, the latest in a surge of violence in the territory that has drawn international condemnation.
The rising settler violence against Palestinians in recent weeks has presented a mounting challenge for Israel’s military. It is responsible for maintaining law and order in the territory but has been hesitant to take forceful action against settlers.
The health ministry of the Palestinian Authority identified the victim as 17-year-old Kareem Shlaldeh. Palestinian and Israeli authorities offered differing accounts of events on Friday.
Saad Shlaldeh, the mayor of the village, called Sair, said a large group of settlers had attacked the village around 10 a.m., killing one person and setting fire to property.
“These people are thugs and more,” he said in a phone interview, adding that his account was based on conversations with witnesses.
The Israeli military said soldiers were sent to the area of Sair following a report of Palestinians throwing rocks at Israeli civilians. The military added that the Israelis “were present in the area without advanced authorization.”
The statement said a “security official” had opened fire, causing “Palestinian casualties,” without clarifying whether the shooter was a soldier. Israeli civilians were also wounded in the incident, the statement added.
The events that led up to the settlers entering the village also remain unclear. Mr. Shlaldeh said he had no knowledge of Palestinians throwing rocks when asked about the Israeli military’s account.
Nabil Tharawa, 61, a resident of the area, said a second Palestinian was wounded and transferred to a hospital in Hebron. Khalid al-Sharif, an official at Ahli Hospital in Hebron, said a wounded person from Sair was brought to the emergency room.
The violence on Friday came as tensions in the West Bank were running high after the Israeli government published a tender for the construction of houses in a West Bank settlement near Jerusalem. The project is referred to as E1.
Over the past day, 11 nations, including France, Canada and Britain, issued a joined statement condemning Israel for the move. They said it “will undermine the prospect of the two-state solution by driving a wedge through the West Bank and harming the territorial contiguity of the Palestinian Territories.”
Much of the international community regards the West Bank as being a core part of any future Palestinian state.
For roughly two decades, the E1 plan wound its way through a bureaucratic Israeli zoning process. But intense international opposition, including from the Obama and Biden administrations, had mostly kept the project dormant.
That changed under the current Israeli government, the most right-wing in Israel’s history.
Ed Miliband, Britain’s foreign secretary, said the publication of the tender was “unacceptable and destructive” in a post on social media.
Gideon Saar, Israel’s foreign minister, fired back at Mr. Miliband, asserting that “the Jewish people have the right to live throughout the Land of Israel,” an apparent reference to all the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.
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