Settler gunfire near Hebron kills one and wounds a man in his 70s

The Palestinian Red Crescent said two Palestinians were shot on Friday when Israeli settlers attacked the area around Sa'ir, a town north of Hebron in the occupied West Bank. Its paramedics attempted resuscitation on both men where they lay and then carried them to hospital. The younger of the two later died of his wounds. The other, a man in his 70s, was left seriously hurt.

Local reports said a building close to the al-Bi'ah community was set alight in the course of the same raid. Video recorded there showed flames taking hold of the structure.

It is the second armed settler attack reported around Sa'ir inside a week. On Saturday gunmen opened fire in al-Adisa, a neighbourhood of the same town that lies east of the Route 60 bypass road, and left Muhammad Mutoor, a 26-year-old nurse, with a severed spinal cord. Ambulances were kept out of that neighbourhood, and he was driven away in a private car.

Eight settlement outposts have gone up on Sa'ir's land since May 2025. What the two attacks show is that the shooting is only the first part of the injury: the outcome is settled by whether a crew can reach the wounded and how quickly. On Saturday no crew got in. On Friday one did, and it still arrived to a resuscitation rather than an evacuation.

What is known of Friday's attack comes from the Red Crescent and from local reports, with no Israeli comment on it reported and nothing said about whether soldiers were present. In the al-Adisa shooting, residents said troops were there and did not intervene.