JERUSALEM: The Israeli military shot and killed four Palestinians in the village of Tell in the northern West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said Friday, raising tensions in the occupied territory after an Israeli settler was killed in a confrontation with local residents.
Two other Israelis and four more Palestinians were wounded, health officials said, and the Israeli military announced it was preparing for an “extensive” counterterror operation in the West Bank.
The exact circumstances of the incident remained unclear. But Israeli media reports and interviews with local Palestinian officials suggested a group of settlers entered Tell on Friday morning and were confronted by residents who were fearful of an attack.
According to the Israeli military, one of the residents took one of the settlers’ weapons and fired on the group, killing Benayahu Mellet, 32, a security guard in a settlement nearby.
In a video of the incident, confirmed by the Israeli military and circulated online by the military correspondent for Israel’s Army Radio, two armed men in civilian clothing, as well as at least one Israeli soldier, are shown pointing their weapons at a group of Palestinians who had gathered in a field.
At one point, the two armed men rush toward several Palestinian residents with their guns drawn. In the footage, the residents try to push them back and appear to disarm one of the men before opening fire.
In a statement, the Israeli military said it killed the man who took the settler’s weapon and that he was armed when soldiers shot him. But a separate video, published by Israeli media outlets and confirmed by the military, showed Israeli forces firing on a group of Palestinians in the same field who were already on the ground.
More than a dozen gunshots can be heard in the footage, which is less than a minute long. The military said the suspect was one of the people killed in the field. It did not respond to questions about why soldiers killed the other men — all of whom were related — or how long after the original altercation the killings took place.
Later, army chief Eyal Zamir said he was sending more troops to the occupied West Bank, where soldiers have encircled Tell and the nearby city of Nablus.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also said Israel would “act forcefully” following the incident.