Israel settlers set fire to Palestinian nursery, shop in West bank

Israeli settlers set fire to a Palestinian nursery and shop this morning in the village of Al-Sawiya, south of Nablus in northern West Bank, reported Wafa news agency.

According to Ghassan Daghlas, a Palestinian official who monitors Israeli settlement activities in the Nablus district, a group of settlers attempted to blow up the whole  Nablus-Ramallah road using a gas cylinder, causing a shop and nursery to burn down and severe damage to the area.

This is the sixth time settlers have vandalised the nursery, he added.

Settlers from a nearby illegal settlement outpost have recently made several such attacks, explained Ghassan.

He also noted an increase in Israeli attacks against Palestinian homes and vehicles, particularly in the Nablus area.

These attacks come amid heightened Israeli military restrictions and the closure of several roads in the area by the Israeli occupation army, coupled with a noticeable increase in attacks by extremist Israeli settlers on vulnerable Palestinian communities across the occupied West Bank.

Palestinians accuse the Israeli authorities of aiding and abetting settler attacks as part of official efforts to intensify the number and size of Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories.

All settlements, outposts and settlers are illegal under international law. Nevertheless, according to official data, around 650,000 extremist Israeli Jewish settlers live in more than 130 settlements that have been built on Palestinian land since the occupation of the West Bank started in 1967.

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