In a pre-dawn incursion into a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, Israeli occupation forces shot and killed an unarmed 32-year-old Palestinian man inside his own bedroom, according to local reporting and family accounts of the fatal incident.
The victim, identified as Mustafa Taha Mustafa al-Khatib, resided alone in his home in Sarta, a small village located west of Salfit, with the rest of his immediate family living across the border in Jordan. Yaseen al-Khatib, the victim’s uncle, shared detailed testimony with regional outlet Al-Araby Al-Jadeed outlining the sequence of events that led to the killing.
Per Yaseen’s account, Mustafa had been asleep when Israeli forces arrived at his home to conduct the raid. Moving slowly to wake and dress himself, he was delayed in responding to the soldiers’ demands at the door. Before he could exit to open the door, Israeli troops forced their way inside the property, advanced directly to his bedroom, and opened fire multiple times, striking Mustafa in the chest, head and hand.
Witnesses also confirmed that after the shooting, Israeli forces cordoned off the area and blocked local residents from reaching the wounded man to administer emergency first aid. By the time Israeli troops withdrew from the village and Palestinian paramedics gained access to the home, Mustafa had already succumbed to his severe injuries. Paramedics subsequently transferred his body to a local hospital for processing. Graphic footage of the victim’s body inside the home circulated widely across social media platforms in the hours after the raid.
This latest fatality pushes the total number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces and settlers in the occupied West Bank since the beginning of 2026 to 72, according to official data from the Palestinian Ministry of Health. The death toll includes 17 children, five adult women and two elderly Palestinian people.
Fatal shootings like this one are not an isolated incident: Israeli military forces conduct nightly raid and arrest operations across West Bank population centers, most of which are carried out in the early hours of the morning when residents are asleep. These operations regularly result in the death of Palestinian civilians and the detention of dozens more each month.
Current data from Palestinian prisoners’ rights organizations shows that approximately 9,300 Palestinians are currently being held in Israeli detention facilities. Nearly half of these detainees are being held without formal charge or trial, under Israeli administrative detention laws that allow for indefinite detention based on secret evidence that the accused is not permitted to see.
The incident comes amid growing international scrutiny of the expanding pattern of violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, linked to the ongoing expansion of illegal Israeli settlements, a process that a recent on-the-ground report by British journalist Peter Oborne characterized as state-supported ethnic cleansing. The report was published by Middle East Eye, an independent media outlet that provides original coverage of the Middle East and North Africa region.