Israeli forces have shot dead two Palestinian men in the occupied West Bank, after they attempted to extinguish fires on Palestinian farmland started by Israeli settlers, according to local reports.

Palestinian officials told Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, that Israeli forces in the area opened fire and injured four Palestinians in the nearby town of Beit Furik, east of Nablus. It was not clear if settlers or soldiers opened fire on the Palestinians.

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Two of the men later died from their injuries, and Israel has withheld their bodies.

Yousef Hanani, the mayor of Beit Furik, said the town’s residents had attempted to extinguish flames in surrounding agricultural fields when they were attacked by Israeli soldiers and settlers.

Israel claimed that a group of Palestinians set fire to the farmland and attacked a group of settlers from the Derech Avraham outpost, near the illegal Elon Moreh settlement.

An Israeli man was stabbed in the incident and airlifted to hospital, according to the Israeli military report.

Local security and political sources insisted that the Palestinians were attempting to put out fires started by the settlers when they were attacked, Wafa reported.

Hanani said Israeli forces had sealed all entrances to Beit Furik and deployed a large number of soldiers and settlers to the surrounding area. The clampdown left dozens of Palestinians trapped in the town.

Hanani said Israeli forces forced one family to evacuate their home near the scene after assaulting the homeowner.

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The fires damaged electricity poles while settlers also torched two vehicles belonging to local Palestinian residents.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society reported earlier on Thursday that its crews treated two men, aged 40 and 43, for gunshot wounds to the abdomen and transferred them to hospital. It did not say whether these were the two men who died from their wounds.

On Thursday evening, a third Palestinian man was shot dead by Israeli forces near the illegal Israeli settlement of Ganim. The Israeli military claimed the man stabbed a soldier in the leg before being shot dead.

Violence in the occupied West Bank has escalated since Israel began its genocidal war on Gaza, with frequent Israeli military raids and increased settler activity, often in conjunction.

The events came as thousands of settlers and far-right Israelis raided the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem on Thursday.

The raiding party was made up of Knesset members, including far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, rabbis and leaders of an extremist “Temple organisation”.

The group performed Jewish rituals at the Muslim holy site, viewed as a highly inflammatory action given the status of Al-Aqsa, the third holiest site in Islam.