Al-MUGHAYYIR, West Bank: Israel’s army said Saturday the body of a missing Israeli teen was found in the West Bank after he was killed in a “terrorist attack,” as violence escalated across the Israeli-occupied territory where tensions have simmered for months.
The disappearance of 14-year-old Binyamin Achimair sparked attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian villages on Friday and Saturday. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in a statement on social media urged people not to take the law into their own hands.
On Friday, Palestinian Jehad Abu Alia was killed and 25 others were wounded in the attack on Al-Mughayyir village, Palestinian health officials said. On Saturday, Israeli troops delayed for several hours the ambulance carrying the 26-year-old man’s body for burial, witnesses said.
Dozens of Israeli settlers returned to the village’s outskirts on Saturday, burning 12 homes and several cars. The Palestinian Health Ministry said three people from the village were injured, one critically. Border police fired tear gas toward villagers who gathered, trying to disperse them.
In the nearby village of Douma, Israeli settlers set fire to around 15 homes and 10 farms, the head of the local village council, Slieman Dawabsheh, told The Associated Press, saying he had been there. “The army came but unfortunately, the army were protecting the settlers,” he said, asserting that it fired tear gas and rubber bullets at Palestinians trying to confront and expel them.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment. The Palestinian Red Crescent said six people were injured by gunfire but did not say who fired.
Tensions in the West Bank have been especially high since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in nearby Gaza on Oct. 7, sparked by the Hamas attack on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people and took 250 hostages. More than 33,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in Israel’s offensive, according to Gaza health officials.
Hamas since then has been trying to ignite other fronts, including in the West Bank, in hopes of exerting more pressure on Israel. Such efforts have largely failed, though more than 460 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank since Oct. 7, most in clashes sparked by army raids but some by vigilante settlers.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the killing of the Israeli teen.
According to Israeli media, the teen was last seen leaving the settler outpost of Malachei Shalom early Friday to tend to livestock nearby. The sheep returned to the outpost hours later without him, reports said.
Israel’s Channel 13 TV reported that Achimair’s body was discovered 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 helpers as we do to anyone who harms the citizens of the state of Israel,” he said in a statement issued by his office.
In 2014, the abduction and killing of three Israeli teens in the West Bank escalated tensions and eventually ignited a 50-day Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, at the time the deadliest round of fighting between the two sides.
Consecutive Israeli governments have expanded Israeli settlement construction in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, territories the Palestinians seek for a future state, along with Gaza. Some are highly developed and resemble suburbs of Israeli cities, while smaller outposts often have only a few caravans.
While Israel has established scores of settlements across the occupied West Bank, the outposts are not authorized, though the government gives them tacit support. The international community overwhelmingly considers all West Bank settlements illegal and obstacles to peace.
Over 700,000 Israelis now live in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem — territories captured by Israel in 1967.
Israel finds the body of a teen whose disappearance sparked a deadly settler attack in the West Bank
https://arab.news/yqzxb
Israel finds the body of a teen whose disappearance sparked a deadly settler attack in the West Bank
- The disappearance of 14-year-old Binyamin Achimair sparked attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian villages on Friday and Saturday
- Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in a statement on social media urged people not to take the law into their own hands
UN-sanctioned migrant smuggler killed in western Libya
- In June 2018, the UN Security Council imposed sanctions on Al-Dabbashi, along with another five Libyan traffickers
CAIRO: A notorious militia leader in Libya, sanctioned by the UN for migrant trafficking across the Mediterranean Sea, was killed on Friday in a raid by security forces in the west of the country, according to Libyan authorities.
Ahmed Oumar Al-Fitouri Al-Dabbashi, nicknamed Ammu, was killed in the western city of Sabratha when security forces raided his hideout. The raid came in response to an attack on a security outpost by Al-Dabbashi’s militia, which left six members of the security forces severely wounded, according to a statement issued by the Security Threat Enforcement Agency, a security entity affiliated with Libya’s western government.
Al-Dabbashi, who was also sanctioned by the US Treasury for trafficking, was the leader of a powerful militia, the “Brigade of the Martyr Anas Al-Dabbashi,” in Sabratha, the biggest launching point in Libya for Europe-bound African migrants.
Al-Dabbashi’s brother Saleh Al-Dabbashi, another alleged trafficker, was arrested in the same raid, added the statement.
In June 2018, the UN Security Council imposed sanctions on Al-Dabbashi, along with another five Libyan traffickers. At the time, the UN report said that there was enough evidence that Al-Dabbashi’s militia controlled departure areas for migrants, camps, safe houses and boats.
Al-Dabbashi himself exposed migrants, including children, to “fatal circumstances” on land and at sea, and of threatening peace and stability in Libya and neighboring countries, according to the same report.
Al-Dabbashi was also sanctioned by the US Treasury for the same reason.
Libya has been a main transit point for migrants fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East. The country was plunged into chaos following a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime autocrat Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.
The country has been fragmented for years between rival administrations based in the east and the west of Libya, each backed by various armed militias and foreign governments.
