Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strongly denounced the abhorrent killing of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank amidst a surge in assaults on Palestinian communities following the tragic incident.
In the wake of Benjamin Achimeir, 14, being reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers, accompanied by Israeli forces, carried out a violent incursion into nearby Palestinian villages, setting fire to vehicles and houses, resulting in the loss of life for at least one resident and leaving numerous others wounded.
The assaults intensified in various villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s remains were discovered near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Africa Today News, New York, observed smoke emanating from burned houses and fields.
The mayor of nearby Al-Mughayyir village, Amin Abu Alyah, told AFP: “Dozens of settlers are now attacking the village and burning everything they find in front of them. They burned a house, a bulldozer and a number of vehicles.”
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa denounced the assaults and implored authorities to provide assistance to the residents of Al-Mughayyir.
Netanyahu said Israeli forces were “in an intensive pursuit after the heinous murderers and all those who collaborated with them”.
“The heinous murder of the boy Binyamin Achimair is a serious crime,” he said.
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Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant warned that “revenge” attacks would make it difficult for security forces to find the perpetrators. “The law must not be taken into one’s own hands,” he wrote on social media.
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid said, “Violent riots of the settlers are a dangerous violation of the law and interfere with the security forces.”
Hundreds of thousands of Israelis live in West Bank settlements considered illegal under international law.
With tensions already high in the face of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, Israeli security forces and hundreds of volunteers formed a huge search party to look for Achimeir on Friday.
Members of the Jewish settler community participating in the manhunt conducted a raid on Al-Mughayyir, firing weapons and igniting fires in homes and vehicles within the village, as reported by AFP journalists. In retaliation, residents countered by throwing stones.
According to the Palestinian health ministry, at least one individual lost their life and 25 others sustained injuries, as reported on Friday.
Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency, reported overnight that five Palestinians had been injured in another incident of settler aggression in Abu Falah village near Ramallah.
On Saturday Suleiman Dawabsha, mayor of Duma near Nablus, told AFP the West Bank had been “in a real state of war since yesterday”.