Four Palestinians and two Israelis killed in West Bank shooting; accounts conflict on who began violence

At least four Palestinians and two Israelis were killed in a shooting in the occupied West Bank village of Tal on Thursday, marking the deadliest single incident in the region in months. The clash has set off a cycle of military reinforcement, policy announcements, and confrontations in nearby villages, but the sequence of events that led to the deaths remains contested between Palestinian witnesses and Israeli military officials.

According to the BBC, eyewitness Ahmed Zeidan told reporters that the incident began early in the morning when locals in Tal rushed to confront about 30 settlers who were attacking Palestinian homes. Hand-to-hand clashes then broke out in the presence of Israeli soldiers, Zeidan said. Essam Saifi, a local Fatah party leader, told Reuters that settlers opened fire before Israeli forces arrived and that Israeli forces also started shooting. Two brothers and two of their cousins were among those killed, Saifi said, and Palestinian officials reported several other Palestinians wounded.

The Israeli Defense Forces offered a different account. Soldiers had gone to Tal following a report of an attack on Israeli civilians who were hiking in the area, the IDF stated. According to the IDF, a security guard from a nearby settler outpost had his gun snatched by a Palestinian who then used it to kill him. The IDF said soldiers then "eliminated the terrorist who executed the terror attack." The hike itself had not been coordinated with the military, the IDF said, and part of the hiking area falls in zones under Palestinian Authority control with varying levels of Israeli security involvement.

Two video clips widely shared by local media but not independently verified by the BBC show a confrontation between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers and armed Israelis in civilian clothes as gunshots are fired. In the first video, armed Israelis in civilian clothes push and kick back two Palestinian men as gunfire sounds. The second video appears to show both men attempting to grab guns, with one apparently succeeding. The IDF has said a 27-year-old soldier "fell during operational activity in the area of the village," though the circumstances of his death remain unclear. The Israeli ambulance service reported two Israelis were also wounded. The IDF has not explained who killed the other Palestinians.

The Israeli government moved quickly to respond. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called an emergency meeting with security officials and vowed to act "with full force against the terrorists and those who orchestrate and sponsor them." Netanyahu's office issued a joint statement with Defence Minister Israel Katz announcing that the home of the Palestinian shooter would be demolished and that the legalization of unauthorized settler outposts and establishment of new ones would be accelerated. Outposts are wildcat settlements, often just clusters of caravans on hilltops, that are illegal under international law and also under Israeli law when built without official approval.

Yair Golan, leader of Israel's Democrats Party and a reserve major general in the IDF, described the joint statement from Netanyahu and Katz as "a clear intent to set the area ablaze," according to BBC reporting. After the attack in Tal, there have been reports of violent confrontations between dozens of armed settlers and Palestinians in other nearby villages in the northern West Bank. A number of Palestinians were wounded, with one shot in the head in Farata, according to local medics. An AFP reporter at the site south-west of Nablus reported that roadblocks had been set up and troops were searching for additional suspects. The IDF later said it raided a hospital in Nablus and "apprehended two terrorists who took part in the shooting attack" who had gone there for treatment.

The Palestinian foreign ministry condemned what it called "the massacre" in Tal, stating in a statement carried by the BBC that "the escalation of settler terrorism is a direct consequence of the protection, political backing, and complete impunity granted by the Israeli government and occupation forces," and that "official Israeli incitement continues to fuel and encourage these crimes, creating an environment in which settler violence flourishes without accountability."

According to UN data cited by the BBC, since October 2023, 1,114 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank, the vast majority by the IDF. The UN says at least 35 of those deaths have involved attacks by settlers. Over the same period, the UN reports 41 Israelis, including civilians and security personnel, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations in the West Bank. Israel has built hundreds of settlements housing 700,000 Jews since it occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem during the 1967 Middle East war. An estimated 3.3 million Palestinians live alongside Israeli settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The Israeli settlements are illegal under international law, per the BBC's reporting.