Israel has found the body of a teenager whose disappearance sparked a settler attack

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AL-MUGHAIR, West Bank – The Israeli army said Saturday that the body of a missing Israeli teenager had been found after he was killed in a “terrorist attack” in the West Bank, as violence escalated in the Israeli-occupied territory for months. .

The disappearance of 14-year-old Benjamin Achimair sparked attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian villages on Friday and Saturday. One Palestinian was killed and 25 wounded in an attack on the village of al-Mughayir on Friday, Palestinian health officials said. According to witnesses, Israeli forces on Saturday delayed the ambulance carrying the body of the 26-year-old man for several hours.

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Dozens of Israeli settlers returned to the outskirts of the village on Saturday, burning 12 houses and several cars. The Palestinian Ministry of Health reported that three people from the village were wounded, one seriously. The border police tried to disperse the gathered villagers by using tear gas.

In the nearby village of Douma, Israeli settlers set fire to several houses, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported. The Palestinian Red Crescent said six people were wounded in the shooting, but did not say who fired the shots.

Tensions in the West Bank have been high since the Israeli-Hamas war broke out in nearby Gaza, sparked by an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas in southern Israel that killed nearly 1,200 people and took 250 hostages. More than 33,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in the Israeli offensive, according to Gaza health officials.

Since then, Hamas has tried to ignite other fronts, including the West Bank, in hopes of putting more pressure on Israel. More than 460 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank since October 7, mostly in clashes sparked by army raids but some by vigilante settlers, but such efforts have largely failed.

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Israel did not immediately claim responsibility for the teenager's murder.

According to Israeli media reports, the teenager last left the Malachei Shalom settlement outpost early Friday to graze nearby. The sheep returned to the outpost several hours later without him, the report said.

Israel's Channel 13 TV reported that Achimair's body was found by a drone. The broadcaster said he was not shot, but did not elaborate.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the killing: “We will get to the murderers and their accomplices, as we do to anyone who harms the citizens of the State of Israel,” he said in a statement released by his office.

The kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank in 2014 heightened tensions and eventually ignited the 50-day Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, the deadliest round of fighting between the two sides at the time.

Successive Israeli governments have expanded the construction of Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, where Palestinians seek a future state, along with the Gaza Strip. Some are very developed and resemble the suburbs of Israeli cities, while smaller outposts often have only a few caravans.

Although Israel has established numerous settlements in the occupied West Bank, with the government tacitly supporting them, outposts are not permitted. The majority of the international community considers all settlements in the West Bank to be illegal and an obstacle to peace.

More than 700,000 Israelis now live in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem – territories captured by Israel in 1967.

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