Settlers kill Palestinian man in West Bank village of Duma

A 35-year-old Palestinian man was shot dead by Israeli settlers in the village of Duma, south of Nablus in the northern occupied West Bank, on Wednesday, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said.

Thameen Khalil Radha Dawabsheh was killed after being struck in a major artery in the thigh when settlers opened fire, leading to severe bleeding. He was then taken to hospital where he was pronounced dead.

The head of Duma’s village council, Suleiman Dawabsheh, told The New Arab's Arabic edition Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that earlier in the day villagers had thwarted "an attempt by an Israeli settler to kidnap a 16-year-old boy, after the settler drove his vehicle into a street inside the village".

He said residents working their lands near their homes intervened and "rescued the boy from the settler", adding that the incident "confirms the scale of the threat the village faces from settlers, who now enter the village even in broad daylight".

According to Dawabsheh, young men later went to their land to try to prevent settler attacks, when settlers fired on them, hitting Thameen Dawabsheh.

"This caused severe bleeding, especially with the high temperatures, and he was taken to hospital where he was pronounced dead", he said, adding that "the incident has now ended".

Dawabsheh said Duma faces repeated settler assaults aimed at displacing residents and seizing land, noting that Israeli forces have confiscated large areas of land owned by the village over decades.

He recalled a 2015 arson attack in the village, when settlers set fire to the home of the Dawabsheh family, killing parents Riham and Saad Dawabsheh and their infant son Ali, while their son Ahmad suffered severe burns requiring long-term treatment.

With Thameen Dawabsheh’s killing, the number of Palestinians shot dead by settlers since the outbreak of the war in Gaza in October 2023 has risen to 32, amid escalating settler violence in the West Bank carried out with the "protection and collusion" of Israeli forces, according to the Palestinian Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission.