A Palestinian man was killed and three were injured after Israeli settlers allegedly opened fire late Monday in the West Bank village of Wadi Rahhal near Bethlehem, Palestinian health officials said.
According to Palestinian media, dozens of Israeli settlers entered the village and attacked residents.
The Palestinian Authority health ministry said one man was killed and three others were moderately wounded by “settlers’ gunfire” in the village.
There was no immediate comment from Israeli authorities. The Israel Defense Forces, as of Tuesday morning, said it was still looking into the incident.
The slain man was identified by Palestinian media as Khalil Salem Khalawi, 37, although some reports said his surname was Ziadeh.
The Israeli Ynet news site said the slain man was an Israeli civilian who lived in Wadi Rahhal.
The Ynet report further claimed that the gunfire was carried out by members of the IDF’s so-called area defense force, and not Israeli civilians.
Local security teams in West Bank settlements have been bolstered with IDF reservists — mostly locals — amid heightened tensions in recent months. The units are known as “area defense,” or by its Hebrew acronym Hagmar.
Army Radio, meanwhile, cited a security source as saying that the gunfire was likely carried out by “Jewish rioters.”
Settler violence spiked after the October 7 massacre carried out by the Hamas terror group in southern Israel, in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage, but violence was already on the rise before then, according to watchdogs.
Israeli authorities rarely arrest Jewish perpetrators in such attacks. Rights groups lament that convictions are even more unusual and that the vast majority of charges in such attacks are dropped.
Also Monday night, the IDF carried out a drone strike in the Nur Shams camp near Tulkarem, with the Palestinian Authority health ministry reporting five people were killed.
The airstrike and the alleged rioting came as IDF troops carried out searches around the Tapuah Junction in the north-central West Bank after reports of a suspected kidnapping, which the military officially ruled out hours later.
Since October 7, troops have arrested some 4,850 wanted Palestinians across the West Bank, including more than 1,960 affiliated with Hamas.
According to the Palestinian Authority health ministry, more than 650 West Bank Palestinians have been killed in that time. 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.
There have also been several cases of settlers killing Palestinians in the past 10 months, some of which are still under investigation.
During the same period, 27 people, including Israeli security personnel, have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another five members of the security forces were killed in clashes with terror operatives in the West Bank.