Israeli forces, settlers kill 2 Palestinians in West Bank incidents

Two Palestinians were killed on Friday in separate incidents across the occupied West Bank—one shot by Israeli settlers, the other by Israeli military forces during a raid. The deaths underscore a pattern of escalating violence that has become inseparable from the rapid expansion of illegal settlements, a combination that has now forcibly displaced entire Palestinian communities across the territory.

In Khirbet Hamroush, near Hebron, seventeen-year-old Karim Sanad Shalaldeh was fatally shot in the chest during an attack by armed Israeli settlers. According to local sources, large groups of settlers raided the area, firing on residents and setting Palestinian homes ablaze. A seventy-year-old man was also wounded in the same attack. The Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed Shalaldeh's death after he was brought to hospital in critical condition. Emergency responders were unable to prevent the killing, and the incident reflects a pattern of settler violence that has intensified across the West Bank in recent months.

Hours earlier that same morning, fifty-eight-year-old Fathi Khazem, a retired colonel in the Palestinian National Security Forces, was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers during a military raid on his home in Jenin. The Israeli military claimed Khazem attempted to stab troops during the operation, prompting soldiers to open fire. However, the Palestinian Health Ministry reported that Israeli forces did not return his body to his family and prevented emergency services from reaching the house after the shooting. A fourteen-year-old boy was also shot with live ammunition in the chest and back during a separate Israeli raid near Jenin that same day and was hospitalized. Six additional people were arrested during raids in the city.

These killings occur against a backdrop of systematic displacement. A Human Rights Watch report released Thursday found that state-backed Israeli settler violence has fully or partially displaced one hundred seven Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank since January 2023. The displacement is being driven by two converging forces: escalating settler attacks and the rapid, illegal expansion of Israeli settlements under international law. In Qusra, south of Nablus, three Palestinian homes have been under siege for thirteen consecutive days, with Israeli forces and settlers preventing families from entering or leaving. One house has been seized and converted into a military post. Residents are running short of food and medicine because Israeli forces are blocking supply deliveries to the area.

The international response has been swift and pointed. Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territory, characterized the Israeli military as "the most immoral army" in a statement on social media, citing the destruction of water infrastructure in the West Bank alongside the ongoing siege in Qusra and continued killings in Gaza. She noted that since a ceasefire began, Israeli forces have killed more than twelve hundred people, including three hundred children.

At the center of international concern is the E1 settlement project, an Israeli plan to construct a major new illegal settlement that would effectively bisect the occupied West Bank. On Thursday, seven Western nations—the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Canada, and Norway—issued a joint statement calling Israel's opening of construction tenders for more than twelve hundred housing units under the project "unacceptable" and a violation of Palestinian territorial contiguity. The statement warned that the expansion "will take us further from peace" and "further undermine Israel's international standing." The project represents one of the most contested aspects of Israeli settlement policy, as it would fundamentally alter the geography of Palestinian territory and make the establishment of a contiguous Palestinian state substantially more difficult.