Palestinian arrested over murder of West Bank teenager: Israel

The Israeli army said Monday troops arrested overnight a Palestinian suspected of involvement in an Israeli teenager’s killing that sparked settler attacks on Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank.

Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was found dead after he went missing on April 12 from Malachei Hashalom, a wildcat settler outpost near the West Bank city of Ramallah, Israeli authorities have said.

Soldiers carried out an overnight raid in connection with Achimeir’s murder and arrested a resident of the nearby Palestinian village of Duma, the army said in a statement, identifying the suspect as 21-year-old Ahmed Dawabsha.

“During initial interrogation, Dawabsha implicated himself in the April 12 terror attack near the Malachei Hashalom farms, during which 14-year-old Benjamin Achimeir was murdered,” the statement said.

Jewish settlers in their hundreds, backed by Israeli forces, raided Palestinian villages and torched cars and homes after Achimeir, a herder, went missing.

One Palestinian was killed in violence in Al-Mughayyir village, where settlers armed with rifles and Molotov cocktails set houses ablaze, wounded 23 people and displaced 86, according to the UN’s humanitarian office OCHA.

The West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967, has seen a surge in violence since early last year, which has intensified since the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza erupted on October 7.

Hundreds of thousands of Israelis live in West Bank settlements considered illegal under international law, including in settler outposts like Malachei Hashalom that are also illegal under Israeli law though authorities have been slow or unwilling to evacuate them.

At least 486 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops or settlers in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza, according to Palestinian Authority figures.

Nine Israelis including five members of the security forces have been killed in West Bank violence over the same period, OCHA said.