Security forces are investigating the possibility that Jewish extremists carried
out a “price-tag” attack south of Nablus on Friday.
Around 100 olive
trees belonging to Palestinians from E-Sawiya were cut down, the IDF
said.
Vandals placed five metal barrels on a field near the olive grove.
They then spray-painted the words “price tag, terror stones” on the barrels in
Hebrew.
Separately, violence continued to break out in scattered part of
the West Bank between Palestinians and security forces and between Palestinians
and settlers.
In Abud, northwest of Ramallah on Friday, more than a
thousand mourners gathered to bury Muhammad Asfour, 22, who died on Thursday.
Soldiers had shot him the head with a rubber-coated bullet two weeks earlier
during a protest in support of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli
jails.
Mourners and security forces on the outskirts of Abud clashed
around the time of the funeral. Palestinians threw stones at the security
personnel, who responded with riot dispersal means.
Separately, a stone
lightly wounded a soldier, during violence that broke out with Palestinians near
the Tekoa settlement, south of Jerusalem. Palestinians threw stones and
firebombs at the soldiers, who responded with riot dispersal means, the army
said.
Similarly, one of several stone-throwers wounded a soldier near
Beitunya, on the western outskirts of Ramallah.
Near the Adai Ad outpost,
outside the Shiloh settlement in Samaria, a fight broke out between Palestinians
and security forces, in which one Palestinian was hit in the head by a tear gas
canister and taken to a hospital in Ramallah, according to Rabbis for Human
Rights field worker Zacharia Sadeh.
Settlers reported that before dawn on
Friday, Palestinians stole sheep from the Adai Ad outpost and that settlers then
went to the nearby village of Mughayir looking for them.
Sadeh said that
settlers blocked off the entryway to the village. He further alleged that they
attacked a Palestinian shepherd and stole his flock of
sheep.
Palestinians, he said, were able to retrieve the sheep from the
settlers, but only after five sheep had been killed and seven others
injured.
Settlers said they knew nothing of such an attack.
The
IDF reported that security forces responded to a report that clashes broke out
between 150 Palestinians and 20 settlers in that area.
Ben Hartman
contributed to this report.