Israeli settlers rampage through a Palestinian town in revenge for West Bank shooting

Sunday’s violence drew international condemnation, with State Department spokesman Ned Price saying that the shooting attack and the rampage “underscore the imperative to immediately de-escalate tensions in words and deeds.”

The rampage occurred on the same day that the Jordanian government hosted talks aimed at reducing tensions ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which led to a joint statement that “reaffirmed the necessity of committing to de-escalation on the ground and to prevent further violence.”

In the Israeli settlement of Har Brakha where the slain brothers lived, Rabbi Ya’akov Idels, an educator and resident for the past 30 years, said there was “a strong sense of anger and a great feeling of pain.”

“They were full of kindness,” Ya’akov told NBC News via telephone of brothers Hillel Menachem Yaniv, 21, and Yagel Yaakov Yaniv, 19. “My wife was 50 meters from where they were killed. It could have happened to any one of us. It’s an easy place for a terror attack since it’s so easy to run away and find a hideout” in Hawara, he added.

Ya’akov said that as an educator his message was one of “construction and not destruction.”

“I think that if the two that died would be alive, they would condemn these acts,” he said of the subsequent rampage. “I understand the pain that some feel, but these actions miss the main point,” Ya’akov added.

Some 700,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, which are territories Palestinians want to use to build a future state. The international community, including the Biden administration, overwhelmingly considers the settlements as illegal and obstacles to peace.

At Sunday’s meeting in Aqaba, Israeli officials said they would cease discussion of any new settlements for the next four months, and stop authorization of any outposts for six months, according to the joint communique.

But senior members of Netanyahu’s government who are aligned with the hardline settler movement suggested the idea was a nonstarter.

“I have no idea what they spoke about or not in Jordan,” Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich wrote on Twitter. “But one thing I do know: there will not be a freeze on the building and development in settlements, not even for one day (it is under my authority).”

Smotrich, a settler leader who lives in the area and has been put in charge of much of Israel’s West Bank policy, had called for Israel to strike back “without mercy” after the killing of the two brothers. Late Sunday, however, he appealed to his fellow settlers to let officials do their jobs. “It is forbidden to take the law into your hands and create dangerous anarchy that could spin out of control and cost lives,” he said.

Nearly a year of violence has killed more than 200 Palestinians and more than 40 Israelis in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, according to the AP. A deadly Israeli raid on the West Bank city of Nablus killed at least 11 Palestinians last week, and left scores more wounded.

Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, territories the Palestinians seek for their hoped-for independent state, in the 1967 Mideast war.

Paul Goldman reported from Tel Aviv, Lawahez Jabari from Jerusalem and Aina J. Khan from Bradford, England.

Associated Press contributed.