ISTANBUL / Khaled Youssef / Anadolu

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz decided on Friday to begin a process to legalize existing settlement outposts and establish new ones in the West Bank, following events in the town of Tel southwest of Nablus.

Netanyahu's office said in a statement that the prime minister and defense minister took a series of measures following the killing of a settler and the wounding of three others in a shooting near the town of Tel, southwest of Nablus in the northern West Bank.

Among the measures was starting procedures to legalize existing settlement outposts and establish new ones in the West Bank.

The statement added that Netanyahu and Katz ordered the Israeli army to demolish the home of the Palestinian whom Israel accuses of carrying out the shooting near the town.

According to the statement, they also decided to task the army with confiscating weapons from Palestinian villages that Israel described as 'terrorist,' revoking work permits from their residents, as well as carrying out extensive military operations there.

The decisions also included granting Israeli forces 'freedom of action' in West Bank cities and towns to eliminate what the statement called 'terrorism.'

This came hours after an attack by the Israeli army and settlers on the town of Tel southwest of Nablus, which resulted in the killing of four Palestinians and the wounding of four others, three of them critically, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

In contrast, Israel announced the killing of a settler and the wounding of three others in a shooting near the town, before the Israeli army imposed a siege on Nablus and surrounding villages, amid a wide military deployment and continued settler attacks on several villages and towns west and south of the city.

An Israeli army investigation concluded that the shooting that killed an Israeli and wounded three others in Nablus was not 'planned by Palestinians,' but occurred after settlers entered the area without coordination with the army.

The army considered the settlers' entry into the area without prior coordination as 'dangerous behavior,' stressing that 'no one has the right to do whatever they want.'

The West Bank has witnessed a rise in Israeli army and settler attacks since October 2023, resulting in the killing of 1,182 Palestinians and the wounding of thousands, as well as the arrest of about 24,000 Palestinians, according to official Palestinian data.