Describing the move as a “historic and unprecedented change,” the newspaper said Israel's Civil Administration had reassigned authority over the holy site to the religious council of the Kiryat Arba settlement, adjacent to Hebron in the occupied West Bank.

Israeli settlers killed a 20-year-old Palestinian-American man in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health and an eyewitness, as settler violence against Palestinians ramps up in the occupied territory.

Clerics and diplomats walked as if in a religious procession through the streets of Taybeh, a small Christian village in the occupied West Bank where residents blame Israeli settlers for a spate of recent attacks.