Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death.
After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded.
The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields.
Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the nearby al-Mughayyir village, said that “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 condemned the attacks and urged the authorities to help the people 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.
Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant warned “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.
“Violent riots of the settlers are a dangerous violation of the law and interfere with the security forces,” Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid said.
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.
Jewish settlers who were part of the search raided al-Mughayyir, firing shots and torching homes and vehicles in the village while residents responded by throwing stones, journalists reported.
At least one person was killed and 25 wounded, the Palestinian health ministry said on Friday.
Overnight, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that five Palestinians were wounded in another settler attack in Abu Falah village near Ramallah.
Duma Mayor Suleiman Dawabsha on Saturday said that the West Bank had been “in a real state of war since yesterday.”
He said Israeli troops and settlers had set fire to more than 15 houses and 10 farms in his village.
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