Israeli settlers shot and killed a Palestinian American during an assault on a village in the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry and a local witness Thursday.

Raed Abu Ali, a resident of Mukhmas, said a group of settlers entered the village Wednesday afternoon and attacked a farmer. Residents intervened, sparking clashes. Israeli forces later arrived at the scene, and amid the unrest, armed settlers fatally shot 19-year-old Nasrallah Abu Siyam and wounded several others.

Abu Ali said Israeli troops fired tear gas, stun grenades and live ammunition. The Israeli military said it used what it described as riot control measures after receiving reports of Palestinians throwing stones but denied that its forces opened fire during the confrontation.

"When the settlers saw the army, they were encouraged and started shooting live bullets,” Abu Ali said. He added that they beat injured people 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 of 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 them 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 hotspot 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 unidentified suspects shot at Palestinians, who were later evacuated for medical treatment. It did not say whether anyone was arrested.

Abu Siyam’s mother told The Associated Press (AP) that he was an American citizen, making him the second Palestinian American to be killed by Israeli settlers in less than a year.

A U.S. Embassy spokesperson said it "condemns this violence.”

Palestinians and rights groups say authorities routinely fail to prosecute settlers or hold them accountable for violence.

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 from November 2024 to October 2025, said Israel was engaged in a "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 Israeli assault in Gaza, 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 the forced transfer of 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 at militants, displaced tens of thousands of Palestinians.

The report also accused Palestinian security forces of using unnecessary lethal force in the same areas, killing at least eight people, and said the Palestinian Authority 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.” Its report Thursday also warned of demographic shifts in Gaza, raising concerns of ethnic cleansing.

The Committee to Protect Journalists said dozens of Palestinian journalists 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 suspects deemed security risks to be held for six months, renewable indefinitely.

Israel’s prison services did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report but rejected a similar report in January about conditions for Palestinian prisoners as "false allegations,” saying it operates lawfully, is subject to oversight and reviews complaints.

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 recently returned from Gaza, said the UNDP has removed just 0.5% of the rubble and that people there 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” amid the rubble, posing health risks and dangers from unexploded weapons.

He said the UNDP has built 500 improved housing units and has 4,000 more ready, but estimates the need at 200,000 to 300,000 units. The units are intended for temporary use during reconstruction. He called on Israel to expand access for goods needed for rebuilding and urged the private sector to begin development.