The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has taken a dire turn, with two Palestinian teenage boys killed by Israeli forces in the town of al-Khader, south of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank. The victims, 15-year-old Ahmad Ali Asaad Ashira al-Salah and 17-year-old Muhammad Khaled Alian Issa, were shot at dawn, and their bodies were withheld by the Israeli army. Two more children were injured in the gunfire.
This incident is part of a larger wave of violence that has escalated dramatically since the start of the war on Gaza. Israeli forces have been conducting raids across the occupied West Bank, arresting at least 25 Palestinians in multiple locations. According to the Wafa news agency, these arrests include 10 Palestinians in the town of Beit Ummar, north of Hebron; two in the town of Idhna, west of Hebron; three in the town of Dura al-Qari, north of Ramallah; one in the city of Ramallah; five in the village of al-Mazraa ash-Sharqiya, east of Ramallah; and four in the city of Nablus.
Amjad Abu El Ezz, a lecturer of international relations at the Arab American University, believes that Israeli settler violence in the occupied West Bank is part of the Israeli government’s strategy to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state. “The increased number of killings, and the destruction of Palestinian homes and vehicles by Israeli settlers in coordination with the Israeli army, aim to encourage Palestinians to leave their land,” Abu El Ezz said. “Israel is weakening the governing Palestinian Authority, ‘making Palestinian lives impossible’, while at the same time ‘building Israeli facts on the ground’ to prevent the Palestinians from building their own state,” he added. “We are talking about more than 700,000 Israeli settlers. They have weapons, they are acting as an army in parallel to the Israeli army.”
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has reported that at least 948 Palestinians have been killed in the territory by Israeli soldiers since October 7, 2023, with at least 204 being children. Furthermore, over 2,200 Israeli settler attacks were reported between the beginning of 2024 and the end of June 2025, resulting in more than 5,200 Palestinian injuries. Nearly 36,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced across the occupied West Bank due to Israeli military operations, settler violence, or home demolitions carried out by the Israeli government.
In a related development, Israel’s parliament approved a symbolic measure calling for the annexation of the occupied West Bank, with 71 lawmakers voting in favor and 13 against. Although the motion is non-binding and has no direct legal implications, it could place the issue of annexation on the agenda of future debates in the parliament. The Palestinian Foreign Ministry condemned the vote, calling it “colonial and racist,” while the Palestinian Mujahideen Movement described it as a “dangerous escalation” and a “clear disregard for the international community”.