An Israeli reservist soldier killed Amir Muhammad Shanaran, 28, in the south Hebron Hills of the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Saturday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, making him the third Palestinian to die in the territory in a single week. His brother Khaled was critically injured in the same incident, according to the Israeli rights group B’Tselem.
The killings come as violence has surged in the West Bank alongside Israel’s intensified regional military presence, with Palestinians and human rights groups saying Israeli authorities routinely fail to prosecute settlers or soldiers for attacks on Palestinians.
JERUSALEM — An Israeli reservist soldier killed Amir Muhammad Shanaran, 28, on Saturday in the south Hebron Hills of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, making him the third Palestinian to die in the territory in a single week as violence has surged alongside Israel’s intensified regional military presence. Shanaran’s brother Khaled was critically injured in the same incident, according to the Israeli rights group B’Tselem.
The killing occurred in the Masafer Yatta region, a collection of Bedouin villages in the south Hebron Hills that was the subject of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, which chronicles residents’ struggle to stop the Israeli military from demolishing their villages and to document Israeli settler violence against Palestinians.
The death marked the third Palestinian fatality in the West Bank within a week. On Monday, Israeli settlers killed two Palestinian brothers in the northern West Bank village of Qaryout. Three others were also wounded by gunfire in that incident, according to the Associated Press.
The Israeli military said it responded to reports of a violent altercation between settlers and Palestinians on Saturday. An initial military review found that a reservist soldier opened fire on the group, injuring two Palestinians, one of whom later died of his wounds. The military said it is investigating the incident.
Palestinians and rights groups say that Israeli authorities routinely fail to prosecute settlers or hold them accountable for violence.
The Palestinian Authority’s foreign ministry accused Israel on Saturday of “exploiting the atmosphere of war” and the lack of international attention to issues in the West Bank to intensify intimidation, violence, and forced displacement in the territory.