Khamis Ayyad, 40, died of smoke inhalation after the settlers burned vehicles from the city of Silwad, according to the Ministry of Health.
A Palestinian was killed after Israeli settlers burned vehicles and houses in a city in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said.
The ministry said Thursday that Khamis Ayyad, 40, died due to smoke inhalation after the colonists attacked Silwad, northeast of Ramallah, around dawn. Ayyad and others had tried to turn off the fires, local residents said.
The Palestinian press agency Wafa reported that the settlers also attacked the neighboring villages of Khirbet Abu Falah and Rammun, setting fire to more vehicles.
A parent of Ayyad and a resident of Silwad, said that they woke up at 2 am (11:00 pm GMT) to see “flames devouring vehicles in the neighborhood”.
“The city dwellers have panicked and rushed to turn the fires engulfing cars and buildings,” they said, explaining that Ayyad had tried to turn off a burning fire.
The death of Ayyad intervenes in the midst of Israeli settlers and military violence in the West Bank in tandem with the War of Israel on the Gaza Strip.
The colonists attacked the Palestinians and their property with impunity, supported by the Israeli army.
Earlier this week, Awdah Hathaleen, a Palestinian from Masafer Yatta, the community whose resistance to the violence of the Israeli colonists was documented in the Oscar -winning film without land, with which he helped, was killed by an Israeli colonist.
The suspect, identified as Yinon Levi, was placed on Tuesday after a house arrest after a Jerusalem Institute court refused to keep him in detention.
According to the latest data from the United Nations Humanitarian Office (OCHA), at least 159 Palestinians were killed by Israeli troops in the West Bank between January 1 and July 21 of this year.
Hundreds of attacks by Israeli settlers against the Palestinians have also been reported so far in 2025, including at least 27 incidents which have made losses, material damage, or both, between July 15 and 21, said OCHA.
WAFA reported on Thursday that a group of settlers also attacked a car repair workshop in the village of Bazariya, northwest of Naplus in the north of the West Bank.
Observers have warned that the increase in Israeli violence aims to force the Palestinians by force and open the way to Israel to officially annex the territory, because tens of thousands have been forced to leave their homes in recent months through the West Bank.
Earlier this month, the Israeli Parliament – the Knesset – voted massively in favor of a symbolic movement calling for Israel to annex the West Bank.
On Thursday, the Israeli Minister of Justice Yariv Levin and the Minister of Defense Israel Katz said in a joint statement that there is a time of opportunity which should not be missed “to exercise Israeli sovereignty on the West Bank, according to a Times of Israel report.
“The ministers Katz and Levin have been working for many years to implement Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria,” said the press release, using a term used by Israeli colonists and their supporters to refer to occupied Palestinian territory.
Back in Silwad, Raafat Hussein Hamed, a resident whose house was burnt down during Thursday’s attack, said the colonists “had burned everything they could and then fled.”
Hamed told AFP news agency that the attackers “come from an outpost”, referring to an Israeli regulation which, in addition to violating international law, is also illegal under Israeli law.
The Israeli army told AFP that “several suspects … set fire to property and vehicles in the Silwad region”, but the forces sent to the scene could not identify them. He added that Israeli police launched an investigation.
