Twelve hurt in West Bank settlers' rampage

Twelve Palestinians were wounded on Wednesday when clashes erupted in a West Bank village after Israeli residents of a nearby settlement went on a rampage there, witnesses and medics said. The injured all suffered gunshot wounds and one of them was in serious condition, medics said. The clashes first involved Palestinians and settlers from Bat Ayin, where last week an axe-wielding Palestinian killed an Israeli teenager, and then turned into a confrontation between the Palestinians and the army, they added. The incident began in the early morning hours when settlers from Bat Ayin went to a hilltop between their community and the Palestinian village of Safa to bless the sun in a prayer said once every 28 years. According to the Palestinians, the settlers then went on a rampage in the village, firing weapons and vandalising property. The settlers and the Israeli army said the clashes erupted when the Palestinians threw stones at the praying settlers. The Israeli army then deployed to the area to restore order, eventually firing on the Palestinian demonstrators. "IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) were deployed and used dispersal means after all efforts failed to bring calm," an army spokeswoman said. "When violence escalated the forces opened fire at the lower bodies of a number of main instigators and identified hitting them," she said. Six of the wounded Palestinians were injured as a result of fire from settlers and six as a result of army fire, Palestinian medics said. Last Thursday, an axe-wielding Palestinian killed a 13-year-old Israeli boy and wounded a seven-year-old boy in Bat Ayin before fleeing the area. He remains at large. Bat Ayin is one of the most radical settlements in the occupied West Bank. Most of its fewer than 1,000 residents are hardline settlers who normally prevent Palestinians from entering the settlement boundaries. The seven-year-old wounded in last week's attack is the son of Ofer Gamliel, who is serving a 15-year prison sentence for participating in a foiled attack on a Palestinian girls' school in Jerusalem in 2002, media said.