AhlulBayt News Agency: Zionist settlers and occupation forces have killed a 19-year-old Palestinian in the occupied West Bank, marking the second such murder in 48 hours as settler terrorism reaches its highest annual toll in years.
The victim, identified as 19-year-old Baha Sami al-Natsheh, was shot dead in the village of Kobar, north of Ramallah.
According to local authorities and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS), Israeli occupation forces deliberately prevented medical teams from reaching the wounded youth, leaving him to bleed to death on the ground.
The deadly incident occurred when young Palestinians in Kobar attempted to open a gate recently erected by illegal Zionist settlers.
The installation of such gates has become an increasingly common tactic used by settlers to lay siege to Palestinian villages, restrict freedom of movement, and trap residents inside their own communities.
"When the young Palestinians tried to open it, the settlers attacked them," Kobar's Mayor Mounir Badwan reported. "The army arrived and they started shooting live bullets."
While the Israeli military claimed it was investigating the incident, the Palestinian Health Ministry stated that the youth was shot directly by settler gunfire.
After the firing, Israeli troops cordoned off the area and physically blocked PRCS ambulances from providing life-saving treatment.
The Palestinian Authority's civil liaison office confirmed that Natsheh, a resident of occupied East Jerusalem, succumbed to his wounds and that Israeli authorities are now withholding his body, a punitive measure frequently used by the regime against martyred Palestinians and their grieving families.
In a separate attack on the same day, Zionist settlers, under the direct protection of Israeli forces, stormed the outskirts of Yabrud, east of Ramallah, injuring two Palestinians before local residents managed to confront the assailants.
The murder of Natsheh is part of a drastically escalating campaign of violence across the occupied West Bank.
Just one day prior, on Thursday, 51-year-old Mashhour Yassin was shot dead by settlers in the town of Yasuf, north of Ramallah.
The Israeli military attempted to justify the killing by claiming Palestinians were "hurling rocks," a standard pretext used to legi
According to the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, Zionist settlers have killed 30 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since the start of 2026.
The commission described the current situation as a "dangerous escalation," noting that this year’s death toll is already more than double the total for all of last year and the highest recorded since 2022.
The violence is heavily concentrated in the Ramallah and el-Bireh governorate, where 15 Palestinians have been murdered, followed by Nablus with seven deaths.
The commission also documented a staggering 2,051 settler attacks on Palestinians, their lands, and their properties in the month of September alone.
The surge in settler terrorism coincides with the ongoing Israeli war of aggression and genocide in the Gaza Strip.
Since then, the regime has utilized the war as a smokescreen to accelerate the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank through rampant settlement expansion, home demolitions, and unchecked vigilante violence.
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