Palestinian reportedly shot dead by settlers in West Bank amid olive harvest clashes

Settlers and Palestinians clashed in deadly violence around the West Bank village of Yasuf on Thursday, with one resident shot dead and two others injured, Palestinian health officials said.

The Palestinian Authority Health Ministry said that Mashhour Yassin, 51, was shot dead by settlers in the village, which lies in the western West Bank.

Earlier, settlers said a hiking group had come under attack by stone-throwing Palestinians at a waterhole near the village.

Israel Police said they were investigating after “dozens of Palestinians hurled stones at Israeli citizens,” lightly wounding a minor, next to Yasuf.

Officers, accompanied by the IDF, gathered evidence at the scene and were probing a claim by settlers that the Palestinians tried to drag an Israeli teenager away from the hiking group and in the direction of the village.

Police did not mention any Palestinian injuries in the statement, which said troops opened fire at “rioters.”

The IDF also said Palestinians threw stones at Israelis on the outskirts of Yasuf and at IDF troops who were subsequently dispatched to the area.

The soldiers “carried out a suspect arrest procedure that included opening fire at terrorists who were throwing stones,” the IDF said, adding that “hits were identified.”

Troops were searching for the stone-throwers and other suspects who were at the scene, the IDF said.

According to the Kan public broadcaster, the IDF also entered Yasuf to remove the settlers who had gone in and were throwing stones at residents.

The incidents came as international criticism mounts over surging levels of settler violence against Palestinians in the territory.

The director of the government hospital in Salfit told the official Palestinian news agency WAFA that Yassin was killed during a settler attack on the village. Reports also said that earlier, during the settler attack, soldiers shot and wounded two residents and detained others.

Yasuf mayor Jumaa Abdel Fattah confirmed to AFP that dozens of settlers armed with sticks and firearms had attacked the village, which is located between four Israeli settlements, around 1 pm (1100 GMT).

“Yassin was at his doorstep when the settlers attacked the village homes. He went out to defend his house,” Abdel Fattah said, adding that Yassin’s nephew was also injured in the attack.

Abdel Fattah added that the settlers had come from the nearby settlement outpost of Havat Anton, which was established in July, causing previous tensions with Palestinian residents.

The IDF did not immediately comment.

Meanwhile, in a separate incident, masked settlers armed with clubs and stones attacked Israeli human rights activists, causing injuries as they helped West Bank Palestinians with their olive harvest.

Three people were taken to the hospital, two of them with head injuries.

Graphic footage from the scene showed at least five masked individuals carrying clubs who hurled stones and beat activists from Standing Together, Rabbis for Human Rights and Bnei Avraham who had come to assist Palestinians in the village of Janta.

Amit Yaakobi, a field coordinator with Standing Together’s protective presence initiative who was struck in the head, told The Times of Israel: “We started preparing the land for the olive harvest and had been working for maybe half an hour. I saw a white pickup truck belonging to settlers on the hill opposite us. Within 10 minutes, 10 masked men arrived, all dressed in black and wearing gloves. They came down very quickly and immediately attacked us.”

He said he was struck with a club in the head and shoulder and hit in the stomach by a stone. In footage from the scene, he can be seen lying on the ground with blood coming out of his head. Yaakobi added that the settlers also stole equipment belonging to the activists, including phones, bags, and wallets, and shouted “Don’t come back here,” “Get out of here,” and “This is ours.”

The Palestinian landowners were situated behind their Israeli supporters, closer to the village’s built-up area, and were not injured.

Yaakobi also said that the activists called the IDF as soon as they spotted the white pickup truck, but the troops only arrived after the attack.

Footage showed two activists, including Yaakobi, with head injuries and bleeding. Four activists were injured in total; three of whom were taken to an Israeli hospital for medical treatment, two of whom had head injuries.

The clashes at Yasuf and Janta came after more than 100 settlers rioted in the West Bank village of Jalud overnight Monday-Tuesday, preventing Israeli forces from enabling the displaced Palestinian Tubasi family to return to their home.

President Isaac Herzog condemned the incident and charged that the political echelon has not done everything it can to halt attacks by extremist Israeli settlers on Palestinians.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for the perpetrators of the assault on Jalud to be prosecuted “to the fullest extent of the law,” while downplaying the attack as being perpetrated by a “small number” of people.

Video shows soldier threatening West Bank man

An IDF soldier was filmed threatening a Bedouin man earlier this week after entering his home near the West Bank village of a-Taybeh, close to Ramallah.

In the video, the soldier can be heard saying that the man “will be beaten to a pulp; his eyes will be black and blue.”

The father of the man seen in the video, Mohammed Kaabneh, told The Times of Israel that on Tuesday, settlers came in the evening to his home and pepper-sprayed one of his sons, aged 16.

While Kaabneh was at a hospital in Ramallah with his 16-year-old son, four settlers and eight soldiers arrived at his home and accused another of his sons, aged 23, of throwing stones.

According to Kaabneh, the soldiers and settlers damaged property inside the house. In addition to the threat against his son captured in the video footage, he said one of the soldiers called him from his son’s phone and told him, “If you don’t come back, I’ll destroy your house.”

Kaabneh said the soldiers also beat his son. By the time Kaabneh returned home, he said the soldiers had already left.

The IDF has not commented on the claims.

Settler violence in the West Bank has risen sharply since the Hamas-led onslaught of October 7, 2023, that sparked the war in Gaza.

Critics accuse the government of condoning and even encouraging the violence, which has led to the displacement of dozens of Palestinian families.

Additionally, 67 civilians and Israeli security personnel have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank since October 7. Another eight members of the Israeli security forces were killed in clashes during raids in Palestinian cities in the West Bank.

During the same period, more than 1,100 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces or settlers, according to the PA health ministry. The IDF says the vast majority of them were gunmen killed in exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops, or terrorists carrying out attacks.