ABU FALAH, West Bank (AP) — Three Palestinians were killed in a violent clash with settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Sunday, bringing the number of Palestinians killed in recent days to six. The surge in violence comes as much of Israel and the world’s attention is focused on the regional war with Iran.
The Israeli military said it responded to reports of Israeli settlers attacking Palestinians near Khirbet Abu Falah, east of Ramallah. Two Palestinians were killed by gunfire and a third died from suffocation, likely due to tear gas, the military said.
Two of the victims, Fare’ Hamayel and Thaer Hamayel, were cousins. The third man killed was Mohammad Murra. All three were buried in a joint funeral.
Amin Shouman, a resident of Abu Falah who witnessed the attack, told The Associated Press that dozens of Israeli settlers approached the village from the north and opened fire when they were confronted by a community guard committee along the border of the village.
In 2025, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported 240 Palestinians were killed in the territory, with the vast majority by Israel’s military and nine attributed to Israeli settlers. Thus far this year, a far larger share of fatalities has been directly attributed to armed settlers.
Sunday’s fatalities followed several deadly incidents last week. One Palestinian was killed in the South Hebron Hills on Saturday by an Israeli reservist, and settlers shot and killed two Palestinian brothers in the northern West Bank on Monday.
In a rare rebuke, the Israeli military strongly condemned the settler violence and said it opened a criminal investigation against the settlers involved.
“This is an unacceptable incident. There will be zero tolerance for civilians who take the law into their own hands,” said Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth, the commander of the military’s Central Command that includes the West Bank. “Especially at a time when the IDF is striking our bitter enemies, Iran and Hezbollah, with a firm hand — we cannot allow reckless internal violence to undermine the rule of law and the security of the region.”
Palestinians and rights groups say Israeli routinely fails to hold settlers accountable for violence.
The Palestinian Authority’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday accused Israel of “exploiting the atmosphere of war” and the lack of international attention to issues in the West Bank to intensify intimidation, violence and forced displacement.
Yesh Din, an Israeli rights group, tracked more than 50 incidents of settler violence against Palestinians in the first four days of the war with Iran, which started on Feb. 28.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said checkpoint and gate closures imposed as a result of the war are creating mounting obstacles for first responders in the West Bank, including in incidents involving settler violence.
While there is no full lockdown, as there was following the Oct. 7, 2023, attack and last year’s war with Iran, Israel has erected hundreds of new gates across the territory, tightening movement between Palestinian towns and making emergency response significantly more difficult. There are now around 1,100, the Red Crescent said, compared with roughly 800 at the time of last year’s war.
Doctors and emergency workers say movement restrictions hamper their ability to respond quickly, especially following violent attacks by Israeli settlers. Many of the communities most vulnerable to such violence are in parts of the West Bank under full Israeli military and civil control, far from city-center hospitals and dependent on roads that can be sealed without notice.
Lidman reported from Tel Aviv, Israel.
Palestinian women mourn Thaer Farouq Hamayel, 24, who was killed in a violent clash with Israeli settlers, during his funeral in the West Bank village of Abu Falah, Sunday, March 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Palestinians mourn Thaer Farouq Hamayel, 24, Farea Hamayel, 57, and Mohammed Marah during their funeral in the West Bank village of Abu Falah, Sunday, March 8, 2026. Thaer Farouq Hamayel, Farea Hamayel were killed in a violent clash with Israeli settlers. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Palestinians gather around the bodies of Thaer Farouq Hamayel, 24, and Farea Hamayel, 57, who were killed in a violent clash with Israeli settlers, during their funeral in the West Bank village of Abu Falah, Sunday, March 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Authorities braced for the possibility that a damaged chemical tank in Southern California could leak or explode as an evacuation order continued into the Memorial Day weekend for 50,000 residents with no timeline on when they can return.
Firefighters have been spraying the outside of the tank with water hoses in an effort to cool the chemicals heating up inside and prevent an explosion.
The pressurized tank overheated Thursday and began venting vapors at a company site in Garden Grove, about 40 miles (60 kilometers) south of downtown Los Angeles, according to the Orange County Fire Authority.
No injuries have been reported. Air monitoring tests have so far found that air pollution around the evacuation zone is so far within normal limits, and specialized equipment has been deployed to ensure no gas is released from the compromised tank, state and federal environmental officials said Saturday.
Meanwhile, some Garden Grove residents filed a class-action lawsuit on Saturday against GKN Aerospace Transparency Systems, the company that operates the facility where the tank is located.
Lawyers for residents living in the evacuation zone argued in their federal court lawsuit that regardless of what happens next, property values in the surrounding community are sure to be impacted.
“There is no good outcome here for the people who live nearby,” the lawyers wrote in a statement. “In the best-case scenario, a slow, controlled leak still forces residents out of their homes for an indefinite period, disrupting families, businesses, and daily life. In the worst case, a catastrophic explosion could send a plume and debris across a far wider area, damaging thousands of properties and exposing residents to serious health risks.”
Spokespersons for the company didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment Sunday.
Officials said the valves on the tank are broken or “gummed up,” which prevented crews from removing the chemical or relieving the pressure on the tank, said Craig Covey, Orange County Fire Authority division chief.
Firefighters’ first hope is to find a way to cool off the chemical inside the tank so it won’t leak or explode. If that is not possible, Purdue University engineering professor Andrew Whelton said it would be best if the tank sprang a leak so the chemical could be mostly contained. An explosion that could spread the chemical over a broad area and send shrapnel flying would be the worst-case scenario.
If the temperature inside the tank continues to increase, the pressure will continue to build as the methyl methacrylate converts from a liquid to a gas, because officials said the pressure relief valves on the tank were no longer working. Whelton said it’s unlikely that firefighters would consider creating a hole in the tank because of fears that could create a spark that might ignite the volatile and flammable gas.
Drones were monitoring temperatures at 10-minute intervals to watch for any spikes and planning was underway to ensure a possible leak could quickly be prevented from spreading into waterways or the ocean, Covey said in an early evening post on social media platform X.
“Sitting back and allowing these tanks to fail is unacceptable,” Covey said, adding there was no guarantee tanks will not breach and leak. “Our goal is to protect your homes — no damage to them — and protect the environment.”
Efforts to cool the tank appeared to be working Friday, but Covey backtracked the following day, saying a reading conducted by drones actually showed the temperature on the outside of the tank, not the inside.
“Unfortunately I do have to report that the temperature was 90 degrees,” Covey said, up from 77 Fahrenheit (25 Celsius) the previous morning.
Cooling the tank is important because the liquid chemical's flashpoint is 50 Fahrenheit (10 Celsius), according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
Initially people in Garden Grove were ordered to leave. Evacuation orders were then expanded to some parts of five other Orange County cities including Cypress, Stanton, Anaheim, Buena Park and Westminster. Some people with pets planned to sleep in their cars.
Several shelters remained open Saturday, including at three high schools.
Marco Solano, 32, spent Friday night at his parents’ home, frustrated by the situation and monitoring the news to see if he could go home.
“I don’t think that they should have dangerous chemicals in a neighborhood area, especially that dangerous that they have to evacuate people,” Solano said. “But again, it's not up to me. I don’t make the laws. I don’t make the rules. We just have to do what is best I guess.”
Solano, who has multiple jobs, said he felt very tired and weak and believed the stress of the chemical leak was exacerbating his anemia and ulcerative colitis.
“This has been affecting me quite a bit,” he said.
Solano also said he went to his apartment after work Friday to grab belongings and saw other residents who had not evacuated, and he was worried for them.
The damaged tank is located at GKN Aerospace, which makes parts for commercial and military aircraft. It holds 6,000 to 7,000 gallons (22,700 and 26,500 liters) of methyl methacrylate, used to make plastic parts.
Exposure to methyl methacrylate can cause serious respiratory problems and even render someone unconscious. It can also cause neurological problems and irritate the skin, eyes and throat, according to fact sheets about the chemical. But Orange County health officials said the chemical is easy to smell and residents may notice it over a large area without being harmed.
Whelton said the volume of chemical in the tank is much smaller than in the disastrous 2023 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, which he studied when more than 115,000 gallons (435,000 liters) of vinyl chloride was released after officials blew open five tank cars and burned the chemical.
“Many of these are acute, fast-acting effects. But the longer somebody stays in contact with it, the more potential for significant damage that occurs,” Whelton said.
If there is an explosion, officials said they expect “severe structural damage and significant harm” in the blast zone closest to the tank.
If an explosion releases the chemical into the air, Whelton said, it will be crucial to conduct detailed air monitoring specifically for methyl methacrylate and not just generic tests for volatile organic compounds as officials did in East Palestine. General tests, often completed with handheld detectors, may not be capable of detecting the chemical. Indoor tests of buildings and homes may also be needed before residents return home.
The weather will be an important factor in determining where a plume of chemicals would go in the event of an explosion. Officials were developing maps to predict different scenarios about which areas would be most affected.
Meanwhile containment barriers have been set up to prevent the chemical from getting into storm drains or reaching creeks or the nearby ocean in the event of a spill, Covey said.
Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in Orange County, making state resources available to local agencies and letting state-owned properties and fairgrounds be used for shelters if necessary.
Garden Grove is next to Anaheim, home to Disneyland’s two theme parks, which were not under evacuation orders. Park officials said they were monitoring the incident and supporting employees impacted by evacuations.
GKN agreed to pay state regulators more than $900,000 in 2025 to settle violations involving recordkeeping, permitting issues and nitrogen oxide emissions, according to a report on the South Coast Air Quality Management District website.
Associated Press writers Dave Collins in Hartford, Connecticut, and Michael R. Blood in Los Angeles contributed.
People arrive at Freedom Hall, an evacuation center in Fountain Valley, Calif., after a storage tank containing a chemical used to make plastic parts overheated Thursday at an aerospace plastics facility in Garden Grove, on Saturday, May 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Jill Connelly)
People arrive at Freedom Hall, an evacuation center in Fountain Valley, Calif., after a storage tank containing a chemical used to make plastic parts overheated Thursday at an aerospace plastics facility in Garden Grove, on Saturday, May 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Jill Connelly)
Evacuees from an aerospace chemical plant tank leak move to another shelter after the Garden Grove Sports and Recreation Center closed for the night in Garden Grove, Calif., Friday, May 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
Water is sprayed on a tank that overheated at an aerospace plant in Garden Grove, Calif., Friday, May 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
