Two Palestinian men were killed in the occupied West Bank after a late-night raid that residents said involved Israeli settlers, soldiers and police, adding new pressure around settler violence in Palestinian villages near Ramallah.
Residents of Deir Jarir said settlers from a nearby outpost arrived after 9 p.m. on Sunday, saying they were looking for stolen livestock. Israeli security forces later joined them, according to villagers, who said the operation turned into three raids that continued until after 2 a.m.
Relatives and residents identified the dead as Odeh Farajna, 53, a village council member and flower shop owner, and Abdul Adel Rashid Abu Mukh, 26. Another Palestinian was taken to hospital with a gunshot wound, residents said.
Saber Ajaj, a relative of Farajna, said he found him moments after he had been shot in the chest. “The moment I put him in the car I knew that he was dead,” Ajaj said. “This shooting was meant to kill.”
The father of the younger victim, Adel Rashid, accused settlers and soldiers of acting together during the raid. “It’s a partnership between the army and the settlers,” he said.
Rashid said settlers took 21 of his sheep and that another villager lost 50 more. Video from the incident showed a settler being accompanied by four Israeli soldiers while leading a sheep out of a local house.
The Israeli military said it had gone to Deir Jarir to escort settlers who claimed their livestock had been stolen and wanted to retrieve it. The military said troops opened fire after Palestinians threw rocks and concrete blocks at security forces, and described those involved as “terrorists.”
Yuli Novak, executive director of the Israeli rights group B’Tselem, said the Deir Jarir killings showed a pattern in which “settlers invade and steal, while the military and police accompany them and shoot Palestinians who try to protect their homes and property.”
At the funeral on Monday, mourners carried the two bodies from the village mosque to the old graveyard. Iyad Odah, a member of the village council, said residents were being pushed off farmland they once used for orchards and grazing. “Every time they come to attack us they are trying to make life here unlivable,” he said.
