LONDON: Yusuf Kaabneh, 16, was shot dead during a raid by Israeli settlers on the Palestinian towns of Sinjil and Jiljilya in the central West Bank on May 13.
It is not clear who killed him — the armed settlers themselves or the Israeli army, which stood by and watched until a handful of villagers tried to defend themselves by throwing stones, at which point the soldiers opened fire.
Alternatively, the killer could have been a member of the local Hagana Merhavit militia, the “regional defense” units of settlers recruited and armed by the Israel Defense Forces.
Whoever shot Yusuf, he is only the latest among 1,076 Palestinians, 235 of them minors, who have been killed in the West Bank by soldiers and settlers since October 2023.
All of them, say human rights activists in Israel, are victims of an out-of-control extremist settler movement.
