ISTANBUL 

Hundreds of Palestinian mourners paid farewell on Sunday to young men killed by illegal Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank town of Sinjil, northeast of Ramallah.

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 on Friday.

“Saif came back for (the Islamic festival of) Eid, and when illegal settlers began establishing an outpost near the village, he joined the locals to push them back. They beat him to death,” his uncle, Abdel Jalil Hijaz, told Anadolu.

According to Palestinian figures, there are around 770,000 illegal settlers in 180 illegal settlements and 256 illegal outposts in the occupied West Bank.

The international community, including the UN, considers the Israeli settlements illegal under international law. The UN has repeatedly warned that continued settlement expansion threatens the viability of a two-state solution, a framework seen as key to resolving the decades-long Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Palestinian authorities documented at least 2,153 illegal settler attacks in the occupied territory 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.