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Jewish settlers go on rampage
24/07/2008 21:29 - (SA)
Nablus, West Bank - Palestinian security officials said more than 20 Jewish settlers attacked a Palestinian village in the West Bank on Thursday, smashing cars and windows and cutting electricity wires.
No injuries were reported in the incident in the village of Burin near Nablus. Palestinian policemen said dozens of houses and cars were damaged, and that shots were fired in the air when Israeli soldiers arrived on the scene.
Israeli police spokesperson Micky Rosenfeld, however, said settlers never entered the village itself although there were scuffles between Palestinians and Israelis outside Burin on the road to the nearby settlement of Yitzhar.
When police and soldiers intervened to restore order, a settler snatched a soldier's gun and fired in the air before being disarmed and arrested, Rosenfeld and the military said.
Rosenfeld said the settlers had been burning tyres on the road in protest at the demolition by Israeli authorities of an unauthorised structure near Yitzhar when Palestinians began pelting them and passing Israeli motorists with rocks.
Biblical land
Yitzhar is a known hotbed of ultra-nationalist Israelis who believe that the West Bank is part of the biblical land of Israel promised to the Jewish people by God. They oppose any concessions to the Palestinians.
In June Israeli security officials said they suspected that a Yitzhar settler had attempted to fire a homemade rocket at Burin, but it had failed to reach its target and caised no injury.
Earlier this month a student at Yitzhar's theological seminary was arrested after a house-to-house search of the settlement for weapons or explosives, but police did not say if the arrest was linked to any rocket attempt.
An instructor at the seminary was arrested in 2006 on suspicion of inciting violence against Arabs.
Yitzhar residents have repeatedly fought farmers from the Palestinian villages that surround their hilltop settlement and have clashed with police sent to supervise demolition of unlicensed buildings in the area.
In 2006, the Israeli army withdrew troops stationed at Yitzhar for its protection, citing repeated settler attacks on soldiers and destruction of military equipment.
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