Israeli settlers kill 19-year-old Palestinian American, officials and
witnesses say
[February 20, 2026]
By IMAD ISSEID and MELANIE LIDMAN
MUKHMAS, West Bank (AP) — Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank
shot and killed a Palestinian American man during an attack on a
village, the Palestinian Health Ministry and a witness said Thursday.
Raed Abu Ali, a resident of Mukhmas, said a group of settlers came to
the village Wednesday afternoon where they attacked a farmer, prompting
clashes after residents intervened. Israeli forces later arrived, and
during the violence armed settlers killed 19-year-old Nasrallah Abu
Siyam and injured several others.
Abu Ali said that the army shot tear gas, sound grenades and live
ammunition. Israel's military acknowledged using what it called “riot
dispersal methods” after receiving reports of Palestinians throwing
rocks but denied that its forces fired during the clashes.
“When the settlers saw the army, they were encouraged and started
shooting live bullets,” Abu Ali said. He added that they clubbed those
injured with sticks after they had fallen to the ground.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed Abu Siyam's death from
critical wounds sustained Wednesday afternoon near the village east of
Ramallah.
Abu Siyam’s killing is the latest in a surge in violence in the occupied
West Bank. Israeli forces and settlers killed 240 Palestinians last
year, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs. Palestinians killed 17 Israelis over the same
period, six of whom were soldiers. The Palestinian Authority’s Wall and
Settlement Resistance Commission said Abu Siyam was the first
Palestinian killed by settlers in 2026.
Mukhmas and its surrounding area — most of which lies under Israeli
civil and military administration — have become a hot spot for settler
attacks, including arson and assaults, as well as the construction of
outposts that Israeli law considers illegal.
The Israeli military said late Wednesday that unnamed suspects shot at
Palestinians, who were later evacuated for medical treatment. It did not
say whether any were arrested.
Abu Siyam's mother told The Associated Press that he was an American
citizen, making him the second Palestinian American person to be killed
by Israeli settlers in less than a year.
A U.S. embassy spokesperson said they “condemn this violence."
Palestinians and rights groups say authorities routinely fail to
prosecute settlers or hold them accountable for violence.
UN says Israel's acts in West Bank may be ethnic cleansing
The U.N. human rights office on Thursday accused Israel of war crimes
and said practices that displace Palestinians and alter the demographic
composition of the occupied West Bank “raise concerns over ethnic
cleansing.”
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, citing findings
collected November 2024 to October 2025, said Israel was engaged in
“concerted and accelerating effort to consolidate annexation” while
maintaining a system “to maintain oppression and domination of
Palestinians.”
Residents of Palestinian villages and herding communities have been
increasingly displaced as Israeli settlements and outposts expand. Since
the start of the Israel–Hamas war, the Israeli rights group B’Tselem
says about 45 Palestinian communities have been emptied out completely
amid Israeli demolition orders and settler attacks.
Additionally, the office said Israeli military operations in the
northern West Bank “employed means and methods designed for warfare”
including lethal airstrikes and forcibly transferring civilians from
their homes. It also said Israel “forbade” residents from returning to
their homes in northern West Bank refugee camps. The operation, which
Israel said was aimed against militants, displaced tens of thousands of
Palestinians.
[to top of second column]
|
Mourners give condolences to Mohammad Abu Siyam, the father of
Palestinian-American Nasrallah Abu Siyam, 19, who according to the
Palestinian Health Ministry was shot by settlers on Wednesday night,
during his funeral in the West Bank village of Mukhmas, east of
Ramallah, Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
The report also accused Palestinian security forces of using unnecessary
lethal force in the same areas, killing at least eight people, and noted
that the Palestinian Authority had engaged in “intimidation, detention
and ill-treatment of journalists, human rights defenders and other
individuals deemed critical of its rule.”
Neither Israel’s Foreign Ministry nor the Palestinian Authority
responded to requests for comment. Israel has repeatedly accused the
U.N. rights office of anti-Israel bias.
Last year, the U.N. human rights monitor warned of what it called “an
unfolding genocide in Gaza” with “conditions of life increasingly
incompatible with (Palestinians’) continued existence.” Their report on
Thursday also warned of demographic shifts in Gaza raising concerns of
ethnic cleansing.
Report finds imprisoned Palestinian journalists were tortured
The Committee to Protect Journalists said that dozens of Palestinian
journalists who were detained in Israel during the war in Gaza
experienced conditions including physical assaults, forced stress
positions, sensory deprivation, sexual violence and medical neglect.
CPJ documented the detention of at least 94 Palestinian journalists and
one media worker during the war, from the West Bank, Gaza and Israel
Thirty are still in custody, CPJ said.
Half of the journalists, the report found, were never charged with a
crime and were held under Israel’s administrative detention system,
which allows for suspects deemed security risks to be held for six
months and can be renewed indefinitely.
Israel’s prison services did not immediately respond to a request for
comment about the report, but rejected a similar report in January about
conditions for Palestinian prisoners as “false allegations,” contending
it operates lawfully, is subject to oversight and reviews complaints.
UN development chief says removing Gaza rubble will take 7 years
The vast destruction across Gaza will take at least seven years just to
remove the rubble, according to the United Nations Development Program.
Alexander De Croo, the former Belgian prime minister who just returned
from Gaza, said that the UNDP had removed just 0.5% of the rubble and
people in Gaza are experiencing “the worst living conditions that I have
ever seen.”
De Croo said 90% of Gaza’s 2.2 million people live in “very, very
rudimentary tents” in the middle of the rubble, which poses health
dangers and a danger from exploding weapons.
He said UNDP has been able to build 500 improved housing units, and has
4,000 more that are ready, but estimates the true need is 200,000 to
300,000 units. The units are meant to be used temporarily while
reconstruction takes place. He called on Israel to expand access for
goods and items needed for reconstruction and the private sector to
begin development.
___
Lidman reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writers Edith
Lederer at the United Nations, Sam Metz in Jerusalem and Natalie Melzer
in Nahariya, Israel contributed to this report.
All contents © copyright 2026 Associated Press. All rights reserved |
