Benyamin Achimeir, 14, disappeared Friday morning while grazing his sheep near the Palestinian village of al-Mughayyir, near Ramallah, some 500 meters from farms owned by Israeli settlers. The boy’s body was located Saturday midday not far from his pastures and the Malachei HaShalom farms. “Benyamin Achimeir was assassinated in a terrorist attack,” the army, police and domestic intelligence service Shin Beth said in a statement.
A massive manhunt had been launched by the army, and hundreds of civilians, including many settlers, fanned out into the surrounding hills and fields to try to find him. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced “a heinous crime” after the discovery of the young shepherd’s body.
Outbreak of violence
Israeli security forces are engaged “in the intensive pursuit of the despicable assassins and all those who collaborated with them,” Benyamin Netanyahu said in a statement, denouncing “a heinous crime.” The head of government also called on “all Israeli citizens to allow the security forces to do their work without hindrance”, without directly mentioning the armed settlers who for the past 24 hours have been attacking Palestinian villages in the region.
This outbreak of violence against Palestinians continued on Saturday, with an AFP journalist on site testifying to shootings and stone throwing targeting localities and vehicles traveling in the area. The violence has left at least one dead and around thirty injured, including many by gunshots, since Friday, according to the Palestinian Authority Health Ministry.
Burned car wrecks and massacred goats
The attackers fired live ammunition and set fire to dozens of houses and vehicles while residents responded with stone throwing. The Palestinian news agency Wafa also reported on Saturday that five Palestinians were injured in the village of Abu Falah, near Ramallah, in a settler attack.
Al-Muhayyir bore the scars of the violence on Saturday morning. Around houses or sheds with walls blackened by flames, the charred carcasses of cars, vans or agricultural machinery still smoking, noted an AFP photographer. Here, a goat lying in a pool of blood, there trees devoured by fire.
Some dazed residents explored the remains of their house, of which only the skeleton of concrete blocks and the gaping windows overlooking the plain remained. On the side of the roads, dozens of cars burned and roadblocks set up by the army to search vehicles. At least 462 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli soldiers or settlers since October 7, according to the Palestinian Authority, which exercises partial administrative control over the territory.