Israeli settlers shoot dead Palestinian young man in occupied West Bank

A Palestinian young man has been killed by Israeli settlers in the West Bank, according to Israeli news website Ynet.

The Ynet report cited the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah as saying late on Wednesday that the 21-year-old died near the village of Dura al-Qar in the central West Bank after being shot by settlers.

Earlier, two youths were reportedly killed in confrontations with Israeli soldiers near the city of Ramallah.

The security situation in the West Bank has become increasingly tense since a large-scale attack by hundreds of Hamas fighters on Israel on October 7.

Following the death of hundreds of Palestinian civilians in a disputed missile strike on a hospital in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian groups in the West Bank had called for confrontations with Israeli soldiers.

Violence by settlers has also increased recently, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths told an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Wednesday.

Griffiths warned that there is a danger of the situation spiralling out of control.

The West Bank and East Jerusalem have been under Israeli occupation since Israel took control of them during the 1967 Six-Day War. Today, more than 600,000 Israeli settlers live there. The Palestinians claim the territories for an independent state of Palestine with the predominantly Arab East Jerusalem as its capital.