Hunting of Israeli teenagers resumes in West Bank after settler attacks

The search for a missing Israeli teenager resumed on Saturday in the occupied West Bank, sources on both sides said, as settler attacks on Palestinian villages killed at least one person and injured dozens more. The Israeli military said it was still searching for 14-year-old Benjamin Achimeir. He disappeared early Friday in Malachi Ha Shalom, an outpost near the city of Ramallah.

With tensions already high due to the war between Israel and Hamas in other Palestinian territories in Gaza, Israeli security forces and hundreds of volunteers formed a massive search party to find the teenager.

Violence broke out on Friday afternoon when Jewish settlers involved in a manhunt attacked the village of Al-Mughayyir, about 500 meters west of Harshalom in Malachi, AFP journalists reported.

AFP reporters saw settlers shooting and burning many houses and cars in the village, while residents responded by throwing rocks.

Mayor Amin Abu Alia said “settlers attacked the town under the pretext of searching for missing Israeli boys”, adding that “the army arrived to support them”.

Arafat Abu Aliyah, a resident of Mugayel, said Israeli forces had asked residents to gather on the outskirts of the village.

“More than 10 houses and 50 cars were burned,” he told AFP.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said on Friday that at least one person was killed and 25 injured.

Overnight, the official Palestinian news agency reported that five Palestinians were wounded in another settler attack in the village of Abu Falah near Ramallah.

Call for the deployment of protective measures

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, urged the UN to “authorize the deployment of a protective presence in the occupied Palestinian territories and provide a clear mandate to prevent and (repel) attacks against civilians.”

“The Israeli military has proven unwilling or unable to complete the task,” she wrote on X.

Violence has surged in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, since early last year and has intensified further since the war between Israel and Hamas broke out on October 7.

According to official Palestinian data, at least 462 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank.

Excluding annexed East Jerusalem, the West Bank is home to some 490,000 Israeli settlers in communities considered illegal under international law.

The war in Gaza began after Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on southern Israel that killed 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 33,634 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-controlled region’s health ministry.