Palestinian killed as Israeli settlers set West Bank village on fire

A Palestinian was shot dead as dozens of Israeli settlers attacked a village in the north of the occupied West Bank overnight, setting fire to homes and cars, Palestinian officials say.

The settlers – some of them masked – also threw stones and Molotov cocktails in the village of Jit, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said, adding that one was arrested.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said 22-year-old Rashid Sedda was killed and another man was seriously injured by settlers' gunfire. It condemned the incident as an act of “organized state terrorism.” The Israeli military said it was investigating reports of a fatality.

Israel's prime minister said he viewed the incident “with the utmost severity.”

It is the latest in a series of attacks by extremist settlers on Palestinian villages in the West Bank, where violence has increased since Hamas's deadly attack on Israel on October 7 and the ensuing war in Gaza.

Israel has built about 160 settlements housing about 700,000 Jews since occupying the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war – land that the Palestinians claim as part of a future state.

The vast majority of the international community considers the settlements to be illegal under international law, although Israel denies this.

Footage shared on social media showed burning cars and houses following the deadly shooting spree in Jit on Thursday evening.

Surveying the damage to his house on Friday morning, Ibrahim al-Seda told the BBC that he was sitting with relatives outside his house after Maghrib prayers at sunset when he heard a bang.

“We looked out and saw seven, eight, maybe 10 settlers. Two cars were on fire,” he said. “My children ran outside and we grabbed the hose to try to put out the fire on the cars. But the water wasn't enough; we couldn't put out the flames. Then they started throwing stones from above.”

“People from the city came to defend us and our neighborhood. Then more settlers came, this time armed. They started shooting.”

He added: “Young men defending us from above the wall threw stones to protect themselves. We were outnumbered. In the end there were probably about 100 settlers. The people who were further down had to run away because they could not withstand the gunfire.”

“The settlers took control of the area. They set two more cars on fire and prevented us from going outside because they would shoot anyone who tried.”

Mr Seda said Israeli soldiers arrived “about an hour later” and fired into the air, but “did not really intervene at that point to stop what was happening”.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said its doctors treated a Palestinian villager who was shot in the chest and took him to Rafida Hospital in the nearby city of Nablus, where his condition was described as critical, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported. Rashid Sedda's body was also taken there.

In a statement, the IDF said its forces and border police were dispatched to the village “within minutes” of receiving reports of violence, firing into the air to disperse the crowd and “remove the people.”[d] the Israeli civilians,” it said. One person was arrested and handed over to the police for questioning, it said.

The Israeli military said it had launched a joint investigation with the domestic intelligence service Shin Bet and the police following this “serious incident”.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement that it “takes the unrest that took place this evening seriously” and promised that “those responsible for any crimes will be caught and prosecuted.”

President Isaac Herzog wrote in a post on X: “This is an extreme minority that is causing harm to the law-abiding settler community and the settlement as a whole, and in the name and for Israel's status in the world, at a particularly sensitive and difficult time.”

The United States, Israel's most important ally, also condemned the attacks, saying that such attacks on Palestinian civilians were “unacceptable and must stop.”

“The Israeli authorities must take action to protect all communities from harm. This includes intervening to stop this violence and holding all perpetrators of this violence accountable,” a National Security Council spokesman said.

Palestinian analyst and former Palestinian Authority spokeswoman Nour Odeh told the BBC that such attacks occur “on a daily basis.”

“These convictions [by Israeli leaders] are viewed by the Palestinian public as performative because the track record [that] the investigations are leading nowhere, no one is being prosecuted, no one is being held accountable and these settlers can count on the full support of government officials who will protect them.”

The UN said on Wednesday that it had recorded around 1,250 attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since October 7.In about 120 of these attacks, people were killed or injured, and 1,000 caused property damage.

It also said that during the same period, a total of 594 Palestinians – members of armed groups, attackers and civilians – were killed in conflict-related incidents across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. At least 577 were killed by Israeli forces and 10 by settlers, it added.

In addition, according to the UN, 15 Israelis, including nine security forces and five settlers, were killed by Palestinians in the West Bank, while another ten Israelis were killed in attacks by Palestinians from the West Bank in Israel.