Saturday’s violence in the West Bank left a Palestinian dead and intensified scrutiny over how Israeli forces and settlers operate and are held accountable. The Palestinian Health Ministry said a man identified as Ali Majed Hamadneh, 23, was killed in Deir Jarir, northeast of Ramallah, during a fresh wave of attacks and clashes.
Israel’s military said it responded after a violent riot broke out in the village. The military said a soldier in the reserves shot Hamadneh during the incident, and that the man was evacuated for medical treatment before later dying at the hospital.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said Hamadneh was killed on Saturday, a day after Israel’s military described its action in Deir Jarir. The military also said it opened an investigation, though the AP report said Palestinians and rights groups have criticized what they say is a pattern in which Israeli authorities routinely fail to hold settlers or soldiers accountable for violence.
Fathi Hamdan, head of the Deir Jarir Village Council, said Hamadneh was shot by a settler in civilian clothes and that the military only responded after the shooting. Hamdan’s account directly challenges the military’s description of the reservist’s role in the incident and underscores how accounts of West Bank violence can diverge sharply.
Israel’s military declined to comment on whether the reservist was on duty during the incident or whether he was involved as a civilian. The differing descriptions of who was armed and when the military intervened left unresolved questions about the incident’s sequence for residents and rights advocates.
The report placed Saturday’s killing in a broader escalation in the West Bank, saying violence has claimed the lives of 22 people since the start of the Iran war. It said that so far this year, 33 Palestinians have been killed, including two thirds during the Iran war in March, and that settlers have killed at least eight of the Palestinians.
It also cited United Nations figures from 2025, when the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that 240 Palestinians were killed in the territory, with the vast majority killed by Israel’s military and nine killed by Israeli settlers. The contrast was used in the AP account to emphasize the role of the military as the primary driver of the overall toll, even as settlers’ attacks remain part of the pattern.
The violence comes amid settlement expansion. Peace Now said Israel’s government approved the establishment of 34 new settlements in the West Bank, and the group said the Security Cabinet approved the new settlements on April 1 but kept the approval under wraps during the war with Iran to avoid straining relations with the U.S.
Peace Now said some of the approved settlements were neighborhoods of existing settlements that received independent designation, while others were small, unrecognized outposts and farms that received official approval. The monitoring group condemned what it called a “frenzy” of approvals as an election ploy to appeal to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing supporters ahead of elections due later this year.
In a ceremony marking the establishment of new settlements, right-wing politicians celebrated the approvals. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said, “Israel’s political decisions in Judea and Samaria are completely killing off the idea of separate states and the founding of a terror state in the heart (of Israel),” according to the AP report, which also said the Israeli government had established a total of 102 new settlements since 2023, according to Peace Now.