Body of missing Israeli shepherd, 14, discovered mutilated amid clashes
After more than 24 hours of searching, the body of a 14-year-old Israeli shepherd was found mutilated near a farm in Israel’s Binyamin region on Saturday, triggering clashes between Jews and Palestinians.
Smoke billows from the Palestinian village of Qusra during clashes on April 13, 2024 following the discovery of the mutilated body of a 14-year-old Israeli shepherd. Photo by TPS
Benyamin Amichai, a 14-year-old from Jerusalem, disappeared on Friday morning while out with a flock of sheep from the Angels of Peace farm. According to Elisha Yered, a spokesperson for the farms in the Binyamin area, Amichai was stabbed and beaten with rocks so many times that search teams couldn’t immediately identify the body.
The attack came after three Palestinian terror cells that planned to kidnap shepherds on the farm were arrested during the past two weeks.
A preliminary investigation concluded that terrorists ambushed Amichai on the farm about 100 meters away from a barn and that he fought back before eventually being subdued. The investigation also concluded he was killed on Friday, either in the morning or early afternoon.
Yered said that “Dozens, if not hundreds” of Palestinian attacks on shepherds and agricultural workers in Judea and Samaria have taken place in the past year.
Palestinians clashed with soldiers searching for Amichai and his killers, throwing rocks and firebombs at security personnel.
Jews and Palestinians in nearby communities clashed on Saturday in the towns of al-Mughayyir and Duma, where security forces had focused much of the search, and other nearby villages. One Palestinian was reported killed and eight injured. Several homes and cars in those villages were torched.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned “the heinous murder,” in a statement.
“We will get the murderers and those who helped them, as we do to all who harm the citizens of the State of Israel,” the prime minister said.
Armed Jewish settlers blocked roads, vandalised property and scuffled with Palestinians around towns and villages in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, medics and witnesses said, after an Israeli teenager was killed in a suspected militant attack.
The Palestinian health ministry said a 17-year-old Palestinian, named Omar Hamed, also died hours after he was wounded by a settler’s gunfire in the village of Beitin near Ramallah. There was no immediate Israeli comment.
At least 20 other Palestinians were wounded, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society.
Israel’s top-selling newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, said one of its photographers was assaulted by settlers, some of whom wore Israeli army uniforms.
Israeli authorities said they were beefing up security forces to tamp down the flare-up, worried about a possible spread of violence from the Gaza war now in its seventh month.
The friction between settlers and Palestinians, at several locations between the city of Ramallah and northern Nablus, began on Friday after a 14-year-old Israeli went missing in the area. His body was discovered on Saturday, the military said.
Calling the killing a “terrorist attack”, Israel said the Palestinian suspects were being pursued. In a veiled reference to the boy’s fellow settlers, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Israelis not to get in the way of the security forces.
But settlers blocked entrances to two Palestinian towns and threw rocks at passing cars, witnesses and municipal officials cited by the Palestinian news agency WAFA said. Some of the assailants fired live ammunition, officials quoted by Wafa said.
The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said settlers torched one of their cars and opened fire at their crewmen at Al-Mughayyer village near Ramallah.
Footage of cars and houses in flames circulated on social media. Reuters could not immediately authenticate the videos.
In a statement, the Israeli military said dozens of Israelis and Palestinians had been hurt in confrontations, some of which involved gunfire. It did not specify who did the shooting.
Palestinian officials and medics said unlike the settlers, residents were unarmed.
On Friday, settlers entered a village and set houses and cars ablaze. One person was killed in that rampage, Palestinian medics said, though it was unclear whether he was shot by Israeli forces or settlers.
Hamas, the Islamist Palestinian group fighting Israeli forces on a mission to crush its militants in Gaza, issued a statement on Saturday urging Palestinians in the West Bank to fight against what it described as “settler militias”.
Though Israeli ground troops have largely been withdrawn from Gaza this month, airstrikes continue as well as incursions in Al-Nusseirat in the centre of the enclave. Five Palestinians were killed there on Saturday, medics said.
Violence in the West Bank was already on the rise before the Gaza war broke out on October 7 with Hamas’ shock attack in southern Israel. It has since increased, with stepped-up Israeli raids and Palestinian street attacks.
The West Bank is among the territories the Palestinians seek for a state. Most countries around the world view Israeli settlements there as illegal, a view that Israel disputes.
Since October 7, Israeli security forces have arrested more than 3,700 Palestinian terror suspects, of whom 1,600 are Hamas members of Hamas.
