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Tal clash sparks operation
Four Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers were killed near the Palestinian village of Tal, southwest of Nablus, as Israeli forces launched preparations for an “extensive” counterterror operation in the West Bank.
The confrontation began after Israeli military said it received reports that Israeli civilians who were hiking in the area had been attacked near the village in Area A, where Israelis are officially prohibited from entering.
The IDF said a Palestinian man took a weapon from Israeli security personnel from the nearby settlement of Havat Gilad and opened fire, wounding several Israelis before being killed, and it identified 32-year-old Benayahu Mellet as one of the Israelis killed.
The BBC reported that Palestinians told it residents confronted Jewish settlers who were attacking them, and that an eyewitness said soldiers then arrived and started shooting.
The Times of Israel described a gunfight after a group of settlers raided Tell, with the Palestinian who managed to snatch the weapon of Mellet fatally shooting Mellet along with Maj. Yuval Ezra, and three other Palestinians also killed in the gunfight.
Revenge calls and competing narratives
In the aftermath, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the villages of Tell, Iraq Burin and Beit Furik “need to look exactly like the refugee camps in Nablus and Tulkarm,” while the BBC reported that he also called for nearby Palestinian villages to be cleared of their inhabitants and new settlements built.
The BBC quoted the Palestinian foreign ministry condemning what it called “the massacre” in Tal and saying “the escalation of settler terrorism is a direct consequence of the protection, political backing, and complete impunity granted by the Israeli government and occupation forces.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to act “with full force against the terrorists and those who orchestrate and sponsor them,” and the CBS News account said Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz announced “a series of steps” including raids and “powerful action.”
The Guardian reported that Yair Golan said Netanyahu and Katz’s response showed a “clear intent to set the area ablaze,” while the BBC described conflicting accounts of the sequence of events in Tal.
The Times of Israel said attendees at Mellet’s funeral repeatedly chanted “revenge!” and that sentiment was acted upon before, during and after the funeral took place.
What comes next in the West Bank
The Israeli military said it was preparing for “extensive” counterterror operational activity in the sector and imposed a curfew on the Palestinian villages of Tell and Bureij, as well as the nearby Jewish settlement of Shiloh.
“The Palestinian Committee to Resist the Wall and Settlements said on Thursday that 20 Palestinians were killed in the occupied West Bank, including the city of Jerusalem, in attacks by Israeli settlers since the start of 2026, the highest toll recorded in recent years”
The BBC reported that the IDF later said it raided a hospital in Nablus and “apprehended two terrorists who took part in the shooting attack” and who had gone to the hospital for treatment.
In a joint statement, Netanyahu and Israel Katz called for the home of the Palestinian shooter in Tal to be demolished and said the legalisation of unauthorised settler outposts and the establishment of new ones would be speeded up.
The Guardian said Netanyahu and Katz called for the razing of the homes of the accused in Tell, as well as collecting weapons and revoking work permits in the village, while also calling for building new settlement outposts and legalising existing ones.
Across the West Bank, the Palestinian News Network reported that Israeli settlers attacked villages in the Nablus and Ramallah areas, including Sura where settlers set fire to at least two homes, and it said Israeli forces continued operations in Tal with reinforcements and bulldozers leveling the area where the initial attack occurred.
