Mourners carry the body of 16-year-old Palestinian Ammar Sabbah, who was killed by Israeli soldiers in a West Bank raid, during his funeral in Tuqu' near Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Dec. 16, 2025. (Credit: Mussa Qawasma/Reuters)
An Israeli settler shot dead a 16-year-old Palestinian in the occupied West Bank town of Tuqu' on Tuesday, following the funeral of another teenager, the town's mayor said.
Israeli state and settler violence has intensified across the occupied West Bank since the beginning of Israel's war on Gaza in October 2023.
Attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank have increased sharply, with the U.N. reporting the highest number of attacks on record in October.
"Today, after the funeral of 16-year-old Ammar Sabah, who was killed yesterday by the Israeli army in the town center, a number of youths were gathered by the main street when a settler shot 16-year-old Muheeb Jibril in the head," the mayor of Tuqu', Mohammed al-Badan, told Reuters by phone.
Israeli forces killed Sabah on Monday during a military raid on the town, the Palestinian health ministry said. The military said the incident was under review. It said rocks had been thrown at soldiers who used riot dispersal means and later responded with fire. The Israeli police did not respond to a request for comment.
"They handcuffed me, hands behind my back, and made me sit on the cold ground for about half an hour, in front of my wife and two children. They turned over the house and my personal belongings." Asked if he owned any weapons, he recalls, "In the end, they briefly blindfolded me and then admitted they had entered the wrong house and that I was not the target." — 60-year-old Mohammad Allan Draghmi, an official at the Palestinian Central Elections Commission in Tubas, on the outskirts of Jenin, the occupied West Bank.
The West Bank is home to 2.7 million Palestinians who live in de-facto bantustans and whose every facet of daily life is controlled by Israel under its military occupation, ongoing since 1967. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis have settled there.
The U.N. and the international community deems Israel's settlements illegal, and numerous U.N. Security Council resolutions have called on Israel to halt all settlement activity. Israel, however, refuses to do so and continues authorizing further settlement expansion and providing subsidies to people who choose to settle there.
"The United States remains focused on keeping Israel secure and Gaza and the West Bank stable," Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Jennifer Locetta told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday.
"President Trump has been perfectly clear that the United States expects the violence in the West Bank to end, and that the United States will not allow the annexation of the West Bank," she said.
Separately, the Israeli military said on Tuesday it planned to demolish several structures in the northern Nur al-Shams refugee camp, a longstanding camp in the West Bank outside the city of Tulkarem. Palestinian media reported the mayor of Tulkarem had condemned the move as "a fully fledged crime."
In March, Israeli military demolished large sections of the camp to clear a broad pathway for military vehicles, displacing thousands, residents told Reuters at the time.
The military has tightened restrictions on movement and carried out sweeping raids in several cities, citing security reasons. In fact, such moves have been called war crimes and crimes against humanity by international organizations. Human Rights Watch, for example, last month accused Israel of conducting forced expulsions in the West Bank, considered a war crime under international law.
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