Funerals Held for Two Palestinian Teenagers Killed in West Bank Village Attack

According to the BBC, funerals were held for two Palestinian teenagers after local officials said they were killed by Israeli settlers and soldiers in an attack on the village of al-Mughayyir in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday. The village council said Omar al-Nassan, 19, and Khalil Abu Alia, 16, were killed as they tried to stop settlers stealing sheep, while the Israeli military said its forces entered the village to provide security for an Israeli civilian and police retrieving livestock. The military said it fired on and struck what it called key instigators of a violent disturbance, during which Palestinians threw stones at its troops. The deaths came amid a recent rise in settler violence in the West Bank, with the UN recording more than three attacks per day on average so far this year. The UN said at least 81 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank since the start of the year, including at least 23 in the context of settler attacks, while three Israelis have been killed by Palestinians over the same period. On Thursday, Israel's police said a 19-year-old settler had been arrested on suspicion of taking part in an attack on the Palestinian village of Qusra on Saturday. In a separate development on Wednesday, Israeli forces demolished the Palestinian village of Khirbet al-Tabban in the Masafer Yatta area. B'Tselem said the village's 70 residents, including 28 children, were given no warning and were not allowed to remove their property, and said it was the 66th Palestinian community to be expelled by Israeli authorities since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.