JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The Israeli army and police announced on Saturday the discovery in the occupied West Bank of the body of an Israeli teenager believed to have been killed in a Palestinian attack, an incident likely to spark further violence.
The 14-year-old boy disappeared Friday according to authorities, who called it a “terrorist attack.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said those responsible would be found and called on Israelis not to interfere with the work of security forces.
As Israeli forces searched for the teenager overnight Friday, Jewish settlers from the area burst into a Palestinian village where they burned homes and cars.
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One person was killed, Palestinian doctors said, and it was not clear whether he was shot by Israeli forces or settlers.
On Saturday, settlers blocked entrances to two other towns in the region and threw stones at passing vehicles, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
Hamas, an Islamist group fought by Israel in Gaza, issued a statement on Saturday calling on Palestinians in the West Bank to fight against what it describes as “settler militias”.
Violence in the West Bank was already on the rise before the Gaza war began on October 7, the date of the Hamas attack in southern Israel. The situation has worsened since then, with the intensification of Israeli raids and Palestinian attacks in the streets.
The West Bank is one of the territories the Palestinians are seeking to form a state. Most countries around the world consider Israeli settlements illegal, which Israel denies.
(Reporting Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem, Ali Sawafta in Ramallah and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo; French version Elizabeth Pineau)
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