Settlers, Palestinians clash in the West Bank

‘Price tag’ slogan daubed on home in Arab village of Bitilu; security forces disperse rioters in violent confrontation

Stuart Winer is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel.

Israeli Border Police argue with Palestinians during clashes between Jewish settlers and Palestinians from the West Bank, near Nablus, April 30, 2013 (photo credit: Issam Rimawi/Flash90)
Israeli Border Police argue with Palestinians during clashes between Jewish settlers and Palestinians from the West Bank, near Nablus, April 30, 2013 (photo credit: Issam Rimawi/Flash90)

Palestinians and Jewish settlers clashed in and around the northern West Bank village of Bitilu on Tuesday night in ongoing violence that followed the fatal stabbing of an Israeli earlier in the day.

Palestinians threw stones at Israelis near the village, while a group of settlers entered the village during the night and sprayed the slogan “price tag” on a house, Ynet reported on Wednesday.

The exchanges prompted a confrontation between dozens of Palestinians and settlers, and security forces arrived to quell the riot. One settler was lightly injured, the report said.

The incidents came hours after a Palestinian from Tulkarem stabbed to death Evyatar Borowsky, a 31-year-old father of five from the settlement of Yitzhar, as he waited at a bus stop at the Tapuah junction in the West Bank.

The attacker grabbed Borowsky’s gun and opened fire on border police at an adjacent checkpoint. The police returned fire, wounding the terrorist before apprehending him. He was taken to an Israeli hospital for treatment.

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Settlers from Yitzhar carried out several revenge attacks against Palestinians, throwing stones at cars and burning olive trees.

Rocks shattered the windshield of a bus carrying schoolgirls from Ramallah as it passed near Yitzhar, south of Nablus.

Rabbis for Human Rights, a left-wing Israeli NGO, reported that settlers attacked and moderately injured a Palestinian farmer near the village of Furiq and uprooted some 100 olive trees near the village of Qaryut.

Security forces remained on high alert on Wednesday amid fears that continued attacks by either settlers or Palestinians could cause tensions and violence to spiral out of control.

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