Israeli settlers shot and killed three Palestinians in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, the latest in a series of killings since the US and Israeli war on Iran broke out.
Thair Farouk Hamayel, 24, Fara Jawdat Hamayel, 57 and Mohammad Hasan Murara, 55, were all shot in the head by settlers in the village of Abu Falah, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Seven people were injured, including four with bullet wounds, the ministry added.
The deaths bring the number of Palestinians killed by settlers this week in the occupied West Bank to six, a significant increase even amid the wave of settler violence since the October 7, 2023 attacks.
Sunday’s shootings came a day after Amir Shnaran, 27, was shot dead, and his brother seriously wounded, in the South Hebron Hills. On Monday, two Palestinians were shot dead near the northern city of Nablus.
Palestinian-Israeli politician Ayman Odeh wrote on X that the attack was “another pogrom”.
“In the shadow of Netanyahu's war of survival [with Iran], gangs of settlers move from village to village, sometimes alongside the army, and murder Palestinians simply because they are Palestinians,” he said.
“All of this is happening under the auspices of the army and with the encouragement of the government. This is an official and deliberate policy, whose goal is ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and the realisation of the vision of the messianic and fascist government: more conquest, more murder and pogroms, more expulsion and more annexation.”
Israel’s ultranationalist government, made up of many settler extremists, routinely dismisses the well-documented increase in Israeli violence in the occupied West Bank. The government has also taken significant steps towards annexing the territory since the beginning of the year.
Mustafa Barghouti, secretary general of the Palestinian National Initiative, accused the Israeli military and settlers of “exploiting the world’s preoccupation with the war on Iran and the Arab Gulf to escalate their criminal attacks”.
Violence has often spiked during the first days of war in Israel. In the early days after October 7, Israeli settlers unleashed a wave of attacks that erased some Palestinian communities.
Israeli outlet Haaretz reported that the military said it viewed Sunday’s killings with “the utmost severity”.
