Settlers rampage in West Bank villages after Israelis killed

Israeli settlers have attacked Palestinian villages in the northern occupied West Bank, after two settlers were shot dead by a Palestinian gunman.

One Palestinian man was killed and more than 100 others were injured in the overnight violence near Nablus, the Palestinian health ministry said.

Dozens of cars and houses were also burnt, according to a local official.

It followed the killings of the two Israelis – brothers from a nearby settlement – along a highway.

The Israeli military said it was continuing to search for the Palestinian who shot Hillel Yaniv, 22, and Yagel Yaniv, 20, and that it had moved in hundreds of extra troops.

Earlier on Sunday, Israeli and Palestinian officials had pledged to de-escalate tensions at a summit in Jordan.

Videos posted hours after the summit ended showed a large crowd of Israeli settlers entering the village of Hawara, about 4 miles (6km) south of Nablus, lighting fires and throwing stones.

Ten-year-old Lamar Abusarees said her house was one of those set alight.

“My mother moved us to a corner because there was no safe place. They broke all the windows while we were inside,” she told Reuters news agency.

A Palestinian official who monitors settlements in the Nablus region, Ghassan Daghlas, told Palestinian Wafa news agency that 30 houses were damaged by stones or burned down in Hawara, and that 15 vehicles were torched.

Settlers also set a barn and three vehicles on fire in nearby Burin, as well as a house and a water tank in Asira al-Qabaliyya, he said.

Source: bbc.com

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