Palestinian American killed by Israeli settlers in West Bank,
West Bank: Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank shot and killed a Palestinian-American during an attack on a village, the Palestinian Health Ministry and a witness said Thursday, February 19.
Raed Abu Ali, a resident of Mukhmas, said a group of settlers came to the village Wednesday, February 18, afternoon where they attacked a farmer, prompting clashes after residents intervened. Israeli forces later arrived, and during the violence armed settlers killed 19-year-old Nasrallah Abu Siyam and injured several others.
Abu Ali said that the army shot tear gas, sound grenades and live ammunition. Israel’s military acknowledged using what it called “riot dispersal methods” after receiving reports of Palestinians throwing rocks but denied that its forces fired during the clashes.
“When the settlers saw the army, they were encouraged and started shooting live bullets,” Abu Ali said. He added that they clubbed those injured with sticks after they had fallen to the ground.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed Abu Siyam’s death from critical wounds sustained Wednesday afternoon near the village east of Ramallah.
Abu Siyam’s killing is the latest in a surge in violence by extremist settlers in the West Bank, which killed 240 people last year, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Seventeen Israelis were killed over the same period. The Palestinian Authority’s Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission said Abu Siyam was the first Palestinian killed by settlers in 2026.
Mukhmas and its surrounding area most of which lies under Israeli civil and military administration — have become a hot spot for settler attacks, including arson and assaults, as well as the construction of outposts that Israeli law considers illegal.
The Israeli military said late Wednesday that unnamed suspects shot at Palestinians, who were later evacuated for medical treatment. It did not say whether any were arrested.
Abu Siyam’s mother told The Associated Press that he was an American citizen, making him the second Palestinian-American to be killed by Israeli settlers in less than a year.
A US embassy spokesperson said they “condemn this violence.”
Palestinians and rights groups say authorities routinely fail to prosecute settlers or hold them accountable for violence.
UN says Israel’s acts in West Bank may be ethnic cleansing
The UN human rights office on Thursday accused Israel of war crimes and said practices that displace Palestinians and alter the demographic composition of the occupied West Bank “raise concerns over ethnic cleansing.”
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, citing findings collected November 2024 to October 2025, said Israel was engaged in “concerted and accelerating effort to consolidate annexation” while maintaining a system “to maintain oppression and domination of Palestinians.”
Residents of Palestinian villages and herding communities have been increasingly displaced as Israeli settlements and outposts expand. Since the start of the Israel–Hamas war, the Israeli rights group B’Tselem says about 45 Palestinian communities have been emptied out completely amid Israeli demolition orders and settler attacks.
Additionally, the office said Israeli military operations in the northern West Bank “employed means and methods designed for warfare” including lethal airstrikes and forcibly transferring civilians from their homes. It also said Israel “forbade” residents from returning to their homes in northern West Bank refugee camps. The operation, which Israel said was aimed against militants, displaced tens of thousands of Palestinians.
The report also accused Palestinian security forces of using unnecessary lethal force in the same areas, killing at least eight people, and noted that the Palestinian Authority had engaged in “intimidation, detention and ill-treatment of journalists, human rights defenders and other individuals deemed critical of its rule.”
Neither Israel’s Foreign Ministry nor the Palestinian Authority responded to requests for comment. Israel has repeatedly accused the UN rights office of anti-Israel bias.
Last year, the UN human rights monitor warned of what it called “an unfolding genocide in Gaza” with “conditions of life increasingly incompatible with (Palestinians’) continued existence.” Their report on Thursday also warned of demographic shifts in Gaza raising concerns of ethnic cleansing.
This post was last modified on February 20, 2026 8:40 am