<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Abu Siyam\u2019s killing is the latest in a surge in violence<\/a> 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\u2019s Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission said Abu Siyam was the first Palestinian killed by settlers in 2026.<\/p>\n Mukhmas and its surrounding area \u2014 most of which lies under Israeli civil and military administration \u2014 have become a hot spot for settler attacks, including arson and assaults, as well as the construction of outposts that Israeli law considers illegal.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Abu Siyam\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n A U.S. embassy spokesperson said they \u201ccondemn this violence.\u201d<\/p>\n Palestinians and rights groups say authorities routinely fail to prosecute settlers or hold them accountable for violence. <\/p>\n UN says Israel\u2019s acts in West Bank may be ethnic cleansing<\/p>\n 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 \u201craise concerns over ethnic cleansing.\u201d<\/p>\n The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, citing findings collected November 2024 to October 2025, said Israel was engaged in \u201cconcerted and accelerating effort to consolidate annexation\u201d while maintaining a system \u201cto maintain oppression and domination of Palestinians.\u201d<\/p>\n Residents of Palestinian villages and herding communities have been increasingly displaced<\/a> as Israeli settlements and outposts expand. Since the start of the Israel\u2013Hamas war, the Israeli rights group B\u2019Tselem says about 45 Palestinian communities have been emptied out completely amid Israeli demolition orders and settler attacks.<\/p>\n Additionally, the office said Israeli military operations in the northern West Bank<\/a> \u201cemployed means and methods designed for warfare\u201d including lethal airstrikes and forcibly transferring civilians from their homes. It also said Israel \u201cforbade\u201d residents from returning<\/a> to their homes in northern West Bank refugee camps. The operation, which Israel said was aimed against militants, displaced tens of thousands of Palestinians.<\/p>\n 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 \u201cintimidation, detention and ill-treatment of journalists, human rights defenders and other individuals deemed critical of its rule.\u201d<\/p>\n Neither Israel\u2019s Foreign Ministry nor the Palestinian Authority responded to requests for comment. Israel has repeatedly accused the U.N. rights office of anti-Israel bias.<\/p>\n Last year, the U.N. human rights monitor warned of what it called \u201can unfolding genocide in Gaza\u201d with \u201cconditions of life increasingly incompatible with (Palestinians\u2019) continued existence.\u201d Their report on Thursday also warned of demographic shifts in Gaza raising concerns of ethnic cleansing.<\/p>\n Report finds imprisoned Palestinian journalists were tortured<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Half of the journalists, the report found, were never charged with a crime and were held under Israel\u2019s administrative detention system, which allows for suspects deemed security risks to be held for six months and can be renewed indefinitely. <\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1769391676_608_.jpeg\")
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