Ramallah/PNN / 

A Palestinian youth was fatally shot today by Israeli soldiers’ fire in the Turmus'ayya town to the northeast of Ramallah.

The minister of health said in a statement that the youth arrived dead at the Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah with a gunshot wound to the chest. The youth was identified as 25-year-old Omar Jabara.

Earlier today, hundreds of Israeli settlers, many of them armed, attacked the peaceful Palestinian town of Turmus Ayya, northeast of Ramallah, setting homes and vehicles of Palestinians on fire.

Around 400 hundred settlers, protected by Israeli soldiers, used brutal force against the unarmed town’s residents, attacking people, their homes and vehicles while soldiers provided protection to the settlers and joined in the attack on the town by firing tear gas canisters at the homes causing dozens of suffocation cases.

Local sources reported that a group of settlers attacked the homes of the residents in the town and set fire to several vehicles, resulting in material losses.

The residents of the town confronted the settlers' attacks, amid appeals for protection against these assaults.

The mayor of Turmus Ayya stated in a press statement that around 60 cars and 30 houses were burned, and several citizens were injured to varying degrees due to the attack by extremist settlers on the village.

The mayor of Turmus Ayya added that about 400 armed settlers from the Shilo settlement, located on the lands of the Turmus Ayya village, were involved in the incident.

On the other hand, Hussein Sheikh, the Secretary-General of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said that "groups of settlers, protected by the occupying army, are raiding the homes, fields, and vehicles of Palestinian citizens in several villages."

Sheikh held the occupying government fully responsible for this organized terrorism.

He also called on our people to form popular committees to protect the properties of citizens and confront this terrorism.

Sheikh called on the US administration and the international community to compel the occupying government and its army to stop the terrorism of settlers and their crimes committed against our people.