At least 4 Palestinians wounded as Israeli settlers go on rampage

Jewish settler mobs rampaged in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Monday, hurling stones, burning fields and wounding at least four Palestinians, furious that Israel may raze some outposts in the occupied territory under US pressure. As the attacks were under way, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected President Barack Obama's demand for a freeze on Occupied West Bank Jewish settlement construction. Jewish extremists blocked roads, hurled rocks at drivers, set fields ablaze, cut down olive trees and opened fire at Palestinians who tried to chase the trespassers from their fields in the northern Occupied West Bank, witnesses said. West of the city of Nablus, an area with some of the most hardline settlers in the occupied territory, dozens of masked men blocked a road in the early hours and hurled rocks at Palestinian drivers who stopped their vehicles to move the obstructions, they said. One of the four people wounded was in serious condition in hospital with a fractured skull, medics said. Police arrested six Israelis, among them an MP, Michael Ben Ari, who represents the pro-settler National Union party. A police spokesman said Ben Ari was among protesters who entered a restricted area and denied charges that the deputy had been mistreated. Near the settlement of Yizhar, heavy smoke billowed into the air as settlers set fire to Palestinian fields. When a group of Palestinians threw stones trying to chase young men off the land, settlers hiding nearby opened fire in the direction of the Palestinians and journalists, an AFP correspondent said. Three army patrol vehicles at a nearby junction did not intervene to stop the violence, but they prevented a Palestinian firetruck from reaching the field. "These sorts of rock-hurling incidents are unfortunately very common in the [Occupied] West Bank," one army spokesman said as he sought more information on the incidents. Angry mobs of settlers also set fire to fields, sawed down olive trees and threw rocks at Palestinians outside the villages of Burin and Farata, south of Nablus. "It took us six months to plant everything, this is our whole life," Shaher Tawil said, as his fields of wheat and olive trees burned on the outskirts of Farata. Asked about the settler violence, northern Occupied West Bank settler leader Gershon Messika said: "It's natural that people who face expulsion from their house do what they can to avoid being expelled." Many of the Palestinians who live in the Israeli-occupied West Bank were expelled from their homes in what is now Israel in 1948 as a result of that year's war over Israel's founding. Groups of settlers converged on the area overnight after rumors spread that Israeli security forces were moving in to evacuate settlement outposts. Netanyahu has promised to dismantle several dozen wildcat outposts - settlements that were erected without government approval - in response to demands from Washington, which has called on Israel to halt all settlement activity. "Our intention is to dismantle unlawful outposts," he told a parliamentary committee Monday, while vowing to continue construction in other settlements to accommodate population growth. In the past few weeks, Israeli police have taken down some tents and tin huts in the occupied territory, though settlers usually rebuild them swiftly. Police and army removed Monday several shacks containing farming equipment outside the settlement of Elon Moreh northeast of Nablus. New shacks arose on the site within hours, local settlers said. Hardline settlers believe the Jewish people have a God-given right to live on the land, though most of the more than 280,000 Israelis who live in the settlements dotting the Occupied West Bank are there for economic reasons. Israel makes a distinction between settlements built with government approval, which it claims are legal, and those built without, which it says are not. International law, under which all settlements on occupied land are illegal, makes no such distinction. Netanyahu on Monday briefed the Israeli Parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee about his recent meeting with Obama. The US president and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have demanded that Israel halt all settlement construction, including expansion to accommodate what Israel calls "natural growth." Netanyahu said Israel cannot "freeze life" in settlements, according to a participant who spoke on condition of anonymity. Netanyahu was quoted as saying that "there are reasonable requests and unreasonable requests," apparently implying that the request to freeze settlement activity falls into the latter category.