Palestinian schoolboy killed in settler shooting near West Bank school

The killing of 14-year-old Aws Hamdi al-Naasan near a boys’ school in al-Mughayyir turned a school day into a scene of panic, leaving four others wounded and exposing how quickly violence has come to surround Palestinian classrooms in the occupied West Bank.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said Aws and Jihad Marzouq Abu Naim, 32, were killed on Tuesday, April 21, 2026, in the village northeast of Ramallah. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said four other people were wounded. According to AFP eyewitness accounts, students were taking monthly exams when settlers descended from a nearby hill and attacked the school. Principal Bassam Abu Assaf said the students were surprised when settlers advanced toward the school and began shooting.

Al-Mughayyir’s mayor, Amin Abu Aliya, told the BBC that about 10 settlers approached the village along with soldiers and started shooting toward the school. The Israeli military said it was trying to break up clashes in al-Mughayyir. It also said it suspended an army reservist who opened fire in the incident. Footage circulating online reportedly shows a man in uniform firing a long weapon toward the village for roughly half a minute.

The shooting added fresh urgency to warnings that civilian spaces in the West Bank are shrinking under repeated attacks. United Nations briefings said 33 Palestinians were killed and 790 injured by Israeli forces or settlers in the first quarter of 2026, while more than 540 settler attacks caused casualties or property damage. A June 2025 UN report said attacks on educational, religious and cultural sites in the West Bank and East Jerusalem affected more than 806,000 Palestinian students.

A March 2026 UN human rights report said more than 36,000 Palestinians were displaced in the year to October 31, 2025, amid accelerated settlement expansion and settler violence. UN experts warned in March that the expansion of settlements and the rise in settler violence were deepening forced displacement and annexation concerns in territory captured by Israel in the 1967 war, land Palestinians seek for a future state.

For families in al-Mughayyir, the result is immediate and visible: children trying to sit exams under the threat of gunfire, parents bracing for the next attack, and schools losing the sense of safety they are meant to provide.