A Palestinian teen was beaten to death early Sunday by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, according to eyewitnesses and a medical source, revealing settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied territories.

Amer Snobar, 18, from the town of Yatma, south of Nablus city, was attacked by settlers guarding a Jewish settlement and succumbed to his injuries, witnesses said. A medical source said the teen was admitted to the hospital with signs of assault on his body.

An Israeli military statement said a Palestinian fell while escaping and hit his head while being chased by army forces. According to the army, the chase ensued following complaints from settlers that Palestinians were throwing stones at their cars.

Settler attacks can range from "beating up and throwing stones at Palestinians, painting nationalist and anti-Arab or anti-Muslim slogans, damaging homes and cars to cutting down trees belonging to Palestinian farmers," according to a report brought to light by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz last year. Based on the report, settler attacks against the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank tripled in 2018, with at least 482 attacks against Palestinians reported, up from only 140 in 2017.

"Price tag" vandalism is a strategy used by extremist Jewish settlers to attack Palestinians and their property in retaliation for perceived threats to Israeli settlement expansion. Slogans in Hebrew similar to the one spray-painted in black outside the mosque have been used in previous attacks on Palestinian property which Israeli police suspect were carried out by settlers in the West Bank.

The settlements are one of the most heated issues in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, frozen since 2014. The international community regards all Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories to be illegal and a major obstacle to peace in the Middle East. Israel captured the West Bank in the Six-Day War in 1967and more than 400,000 settlers now live there among some 3 million Palestinians. Palestinians, who seek a state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, say the settlements, viewed by most nations as illegal, make a future country unviable.