Israelis shoot dead two Palestinian teenagers after settlers encircle village

Israelis have shot dead two teenagers in a Palestinian village encircled by settlers, and Israeli troops have razed an entire village outside Hebron, in the latest attacks in a surge of Israeli terror and ethnic cleansing across the occupied West Bank.

The shootings targeted Khalil Abu Alia, 16, who was about to start 11th grade at the al-Mughayyir boys school, and 19-year-old Omar al-Nassan, who graduated from the same institution with top marks this summer.

The teenagers were killed soon after sunset, when a group of settlers entered the village under police and military escort to steal dozens of sheep from a Palestinian home, village residents and Israeli activists said.

Snipers took up position on rooftops and one shot Abu Alia in the neck, his English teacher, Waheed Abu Naim, said in a phone interview. The boy was on the doorstep of his home when he was targeted.

Al-Nassan was shot twice, the second time in the back, residents and activists said. Both had died before they made it to hospital.

A spokesperson for the Israeli military said Israeli police, army and settlers entered the village to take sheep claimed by settlers from a Palestinian home. The spokesperson provided no evidence of ownership, theft or investigation into stolen goods.

When Palestinians resisted seizure of the sheep by throwing stones and cinder blocks, the troops shot them, the spokesperson said. “The forces responded by firing at key instigators in order to remove the threat. Hits were identified.”

Abu Alia was killed by a soldier. It was not clear whether Al-Nassan was shot by a soldier or a settler.

Israeli soldiers and militants had already killed three other students from their school’s 470-strong student body this year.

The other victims were a 17-year-old player from the Palestinian youth football team shot in June, a 14-year-old gunned down at the school gate in April, and another 14-year-old killed outside the village mosque in January.

“We don’t know how long these crimes are going to continue,” said Abu Naim, who had taught all five boys, and said many more of his students had been injured by Israeli attacks. His brother was also killed by settlers in April.

“This week we are making extra security preparations for the new semester which starts in three days,” he said. They have built a higher wall around the school, topped by a fence, and strengthened gates to the compound.

They are also making teaching contingency plans, because the village has been under tightening siege for the past two weeks.

Since late 2023, Israeli barricades blocked all but one road into the village, and at least eight settler outposts surround it in all directions.

In late August soldiers and settlers began closing the one remaining lifeline out of al-Mughayyir for hours at a time, setting up a temporary checkpoint near the school in the morning and evening.

At least eight families have fled in the past week because they were unable to commute to work, renting flats in other places, Abu Naim said.

The school has 26 teachers but only nine live in the village, and they fear the other two-thirds may not be allowed to reach their classrooms on Monday.

In the south Hebron hills Israeli forces spent the day razing the homes of 12 Palestinian families who lived in the community of Khirbet al-Taban. All 70 residents are now homeless, including 28 children.

Israeli troops demolished all buildings and destroyed water cisterns, storage, livestock pens and caves, the Israeli-Palestinian rights group B’Tselem said in a statement.

It is the 66th Palestinian community that has been wiped off the map since October 2023, with 18 others partly displaced, the group said. Nearly 5,000 people have been forced from their homes, almost half of them children.

“Israel is continuing to erase Palestinian communities at an accelerating pace as part of the ethnic cleansing it is carrying out in the West Bank,” said Yuli Novak, the executive director of B’Tselem. “The world continues to stand by as Palestinians and their lives are left completely exposed to Israeli violence.”

A spokesperson for Cogat, the Israeli military agency which manages civilian affairs in occupied Palestine, said troops were carrying out “enforcement activity” against illegal construction in a military training zone.

In 1981 Israel designated the Masafer Yatta area, including Khirbet al-Taban, as Firing Zone 918. It has been working since to push out the roughly 1,200 Palestinian residents who remain. They have been fighting expulsion in Israeli courts for decades, slowing but not stopping demolitions.

As Palestinian communities have been wiped out, illegal Israeli settlements have expanded, with 11 outposts inside the firing zone, housing some of the most notoriously violent Israeli settlers. None have been targeted for removal.