AFPTwo Palestinians have been killed in an attack by Israeli settlers on a town in the north of the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Sayfollah Musallet, a 20-year-old dual US citizen from Florida, was beaten to death during the incident on Friday evening in Sinjil, the ministry said.
The second man, Mohammed al-Shalabi, also 23, died after being shot in the chest, it added.
The Israeli military said stones were thrown at Israelis near Sinjil and “a violent confrontation developed in the area”. It added that security forces were looking into the reports of one Palestinian being killed, and the incident involving the second was under review.
The US state department said it was “aware of reports of the death of a US citizen in the West Bank”, and that it had no further comment “out of respect for the privacy of the family”.
Sayfollah Musallet, a businessman whose nickname was Saif, was born in Florida and travelled from his home in Tampa to the West Bank on 4 June “to spend time with his loved ones”, according to his family.
A family statement said he was “brutally beaten to death by Israeli settlers while he was protecting his family’s land from settlers who were attempting to steal it”.
“Israeli settlers surrounded Saif for over three hours as paramedics attempted to reach him, but the mob of settlers blocked the ambulance and paramedics from providing life-saving aid.”
“After the mob of Israeli settlers cleared, Saif’s younger brother rushed to carry his brother to the ambulance. Saif died before making it to the hospital.”
The statement added: “We demand the US state department lead an immediate investigation and hold the Israeli settlers who killed Saif accountable for their crimes.”
Official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that Mohammed al-Shalabi was from the town of al-Mazraa al-Sharqiya, just south of Sinjil.
It cited the Palestinian health ministry as saying that he was shot in the chest by settlers, during the same attack in which Sayfollah Musallet was killed.
He was left bleeding for hours before paramedics were able to reach him, it added.
Wafa reported than another 10 Palestinians from Sinjil and neighbouring areas were injured in the clashes with settlers who were armed with automatic rifles.
The Israeli military said in a statement on Friday night that “terrorists hurled rocks at Israeli civilians adjacent to Sinjil”, lightly injuring two of them.
“A violent confrontation developed in the area involving Palestinians and Israeli civilians, which included vandalism of Palestinian property, arson, physical clashes, and rock hurling.”
The military said soldiers, police and paramilitary Border Police forces were dispatched to the area and “used riot dispersal means in response to the violent confrontation”.
It added that it was “aware of reports regarding a Palestinian civilian killed and a number of injured Palestinians as a result of the confrontation”, and that they were being looked into by the Shin Bet security service and the Israel Police.
When asked by the BBC on Saturday for a response to the reports that a second Palestinian was killed, the military said: “The situation is under review”.
Separately, the US embassy in Jerusalem has said it condemns recent violence by Israeli settlers against the Christian town of Taybeh in the West Bank.
Most of the land there is owned by Palestinian-Americans and, according to locals, some 300 residents are US passport holders.
Attacks, including by masked men torching cars and attacking homes, have ramped up. On Monday, settlers set fields ablaze close to a fifth-Century church, leading to a call for international action from the town’s priests.
The State Department said in response it had no higher priority than the safety and security of US citizens overseas and that protecting Christians was a priority for President Donald Trump.
Israel has built about 160 settlements housing some 700,000 Jews since it occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem – land Palestinians want, along with Gaza, for a hoped-for future state – during the 1967 Middle East war. An estimated 3.3 million Palestinians live alongside them.
The settlements are considered illegal under international law – a position supported by an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) last year – although Israel disputes this.
Since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, settler violence against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank has surged. It had already been on the rise.
The UN says at least 910 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank, 13 by Israeli settlers, and another seven by either Israeli forces or settlers since the start of the war. At least 44 Israelis have also been killed in Palestinian attacks in Israel and the West Bank over the same period.
There has been a sharp increase in the number and severity of settler attacks in the West Bank in the same period. The UN says there were 136 attacks by settlers resulting in casualties or property damage in May alone.
On Thursday, a 22-year-old Israeli security guard Shalev Zvuluny was shot and killed when two Palestinian men opened fire and tried to stab passerbys in the car park of a shopping centre in the Gush Etzion settlement bloc, in the south of the West Bank.
The attackers were shot dead by soldiers and armed civilians present at the scene, police said.
