in the West Bank towns last year.

 It is necessary to evacuate the population there for their protection and to clear these villages of terrorist infrastructure,  Smotrich said.  A sharp, determined, and unequivocal military action is required here and now. 

Human rights group B'Tselem warned the violence could spin out of control as Israeli settlers and soldiers amass near multiple Palestinian cities.

 Israeli violence is spreading across the West Bank, fueled by Israeli politicians openly calling for revenge,  said Yuli Novak, the group's executive director.  We know where this leads. Millions of Palestinians are now completely exposed to further attacks, with no one protecting them. 

An unclear confrontation at the center of the tension

The exact circumstances of Friday's incident remained unclear, but Israeli media reports and interviews with local Palestinian officials suggested a group of settlers entered Tell and were confronted by residents who were fearful of an attack.

The village is off-limits to Israelis as part of Area B under the 1993 Oslo Accords struck after the first Palestinian Intifada.

According to the Israeli military, one of the villagers took one of the settlers' weapons and fired on the group, killing Benayahu Mellet, 32, a security guard in a settlement nearby.

In a video of the incident, confirmed by the Israeli military and circulated online by the military correspondent for Israel's Army Radio, two armed men in civilian clothing, as well as at least one Israeli soldier, are shown pointing their weapons at a group of Palestinians who had gathered in a field.

At one point, the two armed men rushed toward several Palestinian residents with their guns drawn. In the footage, the residents try to push them back and appear to disarm one of the men before opening fire.

In a statement, the Israeli military said it killed the man who took the settler's weapon and that he was armed when soldiers shot him. But a separate video, published by Israeli media outlets and confirmed by the military, showed Israeli forces firing on a group of Palestinians in the same field who were already on the ground.

More than a dozen gunshots can be heard in the footage, which is less than a minute long. The military said the suspect was one of the people killed in the field. It did not respond to questions about why soldiers killed the other men - all of whom were related - or how long after the original altercation the killings took place.

Later, army chief Eyal Zamir said he was sending more troops to the occupied West Bank.

Yossi Dagan, head of the Samaria Regional Council, a settler group in the northern West Bank, posted a video online in the wake of the Tell confrontation demanding the government crack down hard on Palestinians.

 We demand an iron fist and for the government to carry out a wide military operation against the Palestinian Authority and against Hamas,  he said.

Settlers have long targeted villages in the northern West Bank

Five Palestinian villages surrounding Nablus were attacked by Israeli settlers Friday, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA.

The towns and villages surrounding Nablus sit in one of the most violent parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. In addition to newly approved settlements, at least nine farming outposts dot the area, and attacks by Israeli settlers, army incursions and confrontations have become frequent.

The maps below show the expansion of settlements and outposts from 1968 until 2024.

Palestinians and human rights groups have increasingly documented armed settlers entering villages in the area. Livestock theft, arson and the defacement of mosques are routinely reported.

According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, since the beginning of this year, 87 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank governorates, including 21 by Israeli settlers.

Israeli deaths have repeatedly been followed by revenge against nearby Palestinian communities called  price tag  attacks.

That pattern followed the March 21 death of 18-year-old Yehuda Sherman, who was killed when a Palestinian vehicle struck his all-terrain vehicle near Beit Imrin. Senior politicians, including Smotrich, attended Sherman's funeral and called for vengeance.

At the time, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs documented 32 settler attacks affecting 30 Palestinian villages and communities across the West Bank, about a third near Nablus governorate over the following two days. Settlers torched homes and vehicles, vandalized property and assaulted residents, injuring at least 32 Palestinians, according to OCHA.

More than 700,000 Israelis live in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories captured by Israel in 1967 and sought by the Palestinians for an independent state along with the Gaza Strip.

McNeil reported from Brussels, Bwaitel from Ramallah and Cunningham from Jerusalem. Associated Press writer Sam Metz in Ramallah contributed to this report.