ISTANBUL

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry on Saturday called for international intervention to stop illegal Israeli settler crimes in the occupied West Bank.

The call came after two young Palestinian men were killed during an attack by illegal settlers on the town of Sinjil in northern Ramallah on Friday evening.

One of the victims, 23-year-old Saif al-Din Kamel Abdul Karim Muslat, held US citizenship and was beaten to death by illegal settlers. The other, 23-year-old Mohammed al-Shalabi, died after being shot in the chest. The Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed both killings.

The ministry urged the international community to “end double standards” in addressing the suffering of Palestinians and to take “necessary measures to implement international legitimacy resolutions and halt terrorist settler militia crimes in the West Bank.”

It also highlighted illegal settlers’ burning of Palestinian homes and injuring dozens during the Friday attack describing illegal settler crimes as “organized state terrorism aligned with official Israeli policy aimed at expanding colonial plans by supporting and protecting settler militants.”

The ministry stressed the urgent need to “hold illegal settler organizations accountable, prosecute them, and impose immediate sanctions on those who support and protect them politically and militarily.”

According to the Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, the number of illegal settlers in the West Bank reached around 770,000 by the end of 2024, spread across 180 illegal settlements and 256 illegal outposts, including 138 designated as agricultural or grazing outposts.

The commission also recorded 2,153 illegal settler attacks in the first half of the year alone, resulting in the killing of four Palestinians.

Since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, at least 998 Palestinians have been killed and more than 7,000 injured in the West Bank by Israeli forces and illegal settlers, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

In a landmark opinion last July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.