Israel settlers set fire to Palestinian fields in West Bank

Israeli soldiers shot Palestinians after their fields in the north of the occupied West Bank were set on fire by extremist settlers, reported Wafa news agency.

Ghassan Daghlas, a Palestinian official in charge of the settlements file in the northern West Bank, told Wafa yesterday that the Israeli settlers took advantage of the hot weather to spread the fire they set in Burin village, south of Nablus.

He added that settlers from the illegal settlement of Yitzhar set fire to fields in the village and when residents attempted to stop them, occupation forces shot rubber-coated metal bullets and tear gas at the Palestinians.

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According to the Times of Israel, Palestinians from Burin filmed ten masked settlers descending from the illegal Israeli settlement outpost of Givat Ronen, hurling stones at a construction site on the edge of the village before setting an adjacent field on fire and fleeing back toward their outpost.

Rights group Yesh Din said residents had told them that the masked settlers fled toward the Har Bracha settlement after setting the fire.

The rights group said another blaze was reported in the eastern part of Burin an hour later.