Israeli settlers beat 23-year-old Palestinian-American man to death in West Bank

The Palestinian health ministry said a 23-year-old man Saif al-Din Musalat was beaten to death by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank on Friday, in the latest deadly assault as violence surges in the territory.

In a statement, the Israeli military said clashes broke out between Palestinians and Israelis on Friday after rocks were thrown at Israeli civilians adjacent to the village of Sinjil, lightly injuring two.

It said the ensuing "violent confrontation... included vandalism of Palestinian property, arson, physical clashes, and rock hurling".

"We are aware of reports regarding a Palestinian civilian killed and a number of injured Palestinians," it said, adding that the incidents were being looked into.

A spokesman for the Palestinian Authority ministry, Annas Abu El Ezz, told AFP that 23-year-old Saif al-Din Kamil Abdul Karim Musalat "died after being severely beaten all over his body by settlers in the town of Sinjil, north of Ramallah, this afternoon".

AFP footage from Ramallah showed his body being carried through the streets draped in a Palestinian flag and flanked by around a hundred mourners.

"The young man was injured and remained so for four hours. The army prevented us from reaching him and did not allow us to take him away," said Abdul Samad Abdul Aziz, from the nearby village of Al-Mazraa Al-Sharqiya.

"When we finally managed to reach him, he was taking his last breath."

The Israeli military said its forces, police and border police were dispatched to the scene and used "riot dispersal means" to break up the confrontation.

A week earlier, AFP journalists witnessed clashes between dozens of Israeli settlers and Palestinians in Sinjil, where a march against settler attacks on nearby farmland had been due to take place.

Israeli authorities recently erected a high fence cutting off parts of Sinjil from Road 60, which runs through the West Bank from north to south.

Violence in the territory has surged since the outbreak of the war in Gaza triggered by the Palestinian militant group Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967.

Agencies