2 Border Police injured by stone-throwing settlers in northern West Bank

Two officers were lightly injured Wednesday after a mob of masked settlers hurled stones at a Border Police patrol in an illegal outpost in the northern West Bank.

One of the officers was taken to the Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva with a minor head injury. The second person was treated at the scene.

Border Police said that they arrested three settlers out of the group of 15-20 who converged on the officers at the Kumi Uri outpost adjacent to the settlement of Yitzhar. The forces had been conducting a routine foot patrol of the hilltop community.

Border Police used riot dispersal means, including firing in the air, to scatter the protesters.

Last week, police arrested two settler youth at the same outpost hours after an apparent hate crime attack was reported in a neighboring Palestinian village. Two cars were torched in Urif and a Star of David was graffitied on a nearby wall next to the Arabic phrase “be careful.”

לוחמת מג"ב נפצעה בראשה מיידוי אבנים בגבעת קומי אורי ביצהר. פונתה במצב קל לבית החולים. נוכחים במקום מדווחים על שני עצורים pic.twitter.com/CULID36OvQ

— Carmel Dangor כרמל דנגור (@carmeldangor) July 18, 2018

The area around Yitzhar has seen a series of alleged hate crimes in recent months, with the Israeli security establishment viewing the settlement and its surrounding as the source of the so-called “price tag” attacks.

Price tag refers to vandalism and other hate crimes carried out by Jewish ultra-nationalists, ostensibly in retaliation for Palestinian violence or government policies perceived as hostile to the settler movement. Palestinian olive groves, mosques and churches have been targeted by far-right vandals in recent years, as have dovish Israeli rights groups and even IDF military bases.