A Palestinian man has been killed and several others seriously injured in separate attacks involving Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, according to local residents and officials.
Witnesses say a number of new settler outposts — small clusters of homes built without formal government approval — have been established over the past 24 hours, including in areas that are officially under the control of the Palestinian Authority.
The latest violence comes amid a broader surge in tensions in the West Bank since the outbreak of the US-Israeli conflict with Iran in late February.
The man killed has been identified as Mohammad al-Malhi, the seventh Palestinian reported dead in such incidents during this period. His family says he was shot in the head by settlers who had set up an outpost on their land near Bethlehem.
According to relatives, Israeli soldiers initially moved in to dismantle the outpost. However, they say settlers later returned and rebuilt it after the troops withdrew — and it was during that confrontation that the fatal shooting occurred.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed there had been a clash between settlers and Palestinians, stating that an Israeli civilian opened fire, leaving one person dead and three others injured.
In a separate incident, video shared on social media shows a 75-year-old Palestinian man badly beaten and bloodied following an attack in Tayasir, near Tubas. Residents say settlers raided the village and fired at young men who tried to resist, before assaulting the elderly man inside his home.
The spike in settler violence reflects a pattern seen since the war in Gaza, which followed the Hamas attack on Israel October 2023. That period has also seen an acceleration in settlement expansion across the West Bank.
International law considers all Israeli settlements in the occupied territories illegal, though Israel disputes this. Outposts, in particular, are typically established without formal government approval, although some have later been retroactively legalised.
In recent days, several new outposts have appeared, including in zones where Israeli citizens are not permitted to enter under Israeli law. While some have been dismantled by Israeli forces, reports in Israeli media suggest that the country’s security cabinet has recently approved the legalisation of around 30 such outposts.
Israel has built roughly 160 settlements housing about 700,000 Israelis since capturing the West Bank and East Jerusalem during the 1967 Six-Day War. Around 3.3 million Palestinians continue to live in the territory, which they see — along with Gaza — as the basis for a future independent state.