Settlers rampage through West Bank village: residents

SAFA, West Bank (Reuters) - Dozens of settlers from a Jewish settlement where a Palestinian killed an Israeli youth last week rampaged through a neighboring West Bank Arab village on Wednesday, injuring at least four people, residents said.

The settlers, from Bat Ayin, smashed car windows and damaged homes as they swept through the village of Safa.

An Israeli military spokeswoman in Tel Aviv had no immediate comment.

Residents said at least four villagers were injured in the attack and Israeli soldiers had arrived at the scene in an apparent attempt to stop it.

Palestinian medics said they had been unable to reach the village because of the ongoing violence.

Last Thursday, a Palestinian wielding an axe killed a 13-year-old youngster and wounded a boy, aged seven, in Bat Ayin. The attacker, who was not identified, fled.

Some 1,000 Israelis live in Bat Ayin, near the Palestinian towns of Hebron and Bethlehem.

In 2002, three settlers from Bat Ayin were sentenced by an Israeli court to prison terms ranging from 12 to 15 years for trying to set off a bomb near a Palestinian girls' school in Arab East Jerusalem.

The injured seven-year-old boy is a son of one of the three jailed settlers.

(Reporting by Haitham Tamimi, Writing by Joseph Nasr, Editing by Jeffrey Heller)

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Terra/Reuters