SILWAD, Palestinian Territories: The Palestinian Authority said Israeli settlers set fire to homes and cars in a West Bank village on Thursday, killing one man, in the latest attack in the occupied territory.
“Forty-year-old Khamis Abdel-Latif Ayad was martyred due to smoke inhalation caused by fires set by settlers in citizens’ homes and vehicles in the village of Silwad at dawn,” the Palestinian health ministry said in a statement.
Witnesses provided corresponding accounts of the attack on Silwad, a village in the central West Bank near several Israeli settlements.
Raafat Hussein Hamed, a resident of Silwad whose house was torched in Thursday’s attack, said that “a car dropped them (the settlers) off somewhere, they burned whatever they could and then ran away.”
Hamed said the assailants “come from an outpost,” referring to wildcat settlements that are illegal under Israeli law, as opposed to formally recognized settlements.
