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Today, hundreds of settlers (tens of them armed) attacked the village of Sawiya and Luban Sharqiya south of Nablus. This attack was in response to the wounding of the six month old Israeli baby the night before at Shilo junction.

The settlers set fire to agricultural fields of the village, gathered wheat and planthouses. According to Omer El Gazi, 37, the son of the guard of one of the planthouses: "At around 8:00 AM we heard voices and sounds of breaking plant pots. When I went with my father to see what is going on we saw tens of settlers uprooting the plants and damaging the plastic of the planthouses and breaking the pots of the plants. When we came to them they aimed their weapon in our faces and told us to leave the area. We were afraid and escaped from the place. Three of them ran after us and the others continued damaging the planthouse." This agricultural area is the size of 3 dunoms, inside the planthouse were about 70,000 plants of various types of which it is estimated that about one half were damaged.

Settlers also set fire to four homes and the Main Girl's Elementary school in the village that served both villages.

Residents of the villages, who have been under curfew since last night, went out into the streets to defend their lands. In reaction soldiers tried to force the residents back into their homes and clashes broke out. The soldiers used live bullets as well as rubber- coated bullets and tear gas to disperse the crowd. 10 Palestinians were injured. Salah Muhamad Hassan, 24, was injured in his bottom from live bullet and was later transported to Rafadiah hospital. Another Palestinian was injured in his leg from a rubber-coated bullet. Both ambulances and fire fighters were prohibited from entering the area.

A group of armed settlers surrounded the home of Miflah Abdel Kareem Said, 42. The house is located near the junction to Ma'ale Levona off of the main road from Nablus to Ramallah. Several of them entered the home and damaged some of the property inside, and forced the family (ten members) to gather in one room while threatening them with weapons. During this time the other settlers climbed to the roof of the house and put up a tent on top of the roof and put up the Israeli flag. The settlers also wrote on the roof `Death to Arabs'. The house was under occupation until 1 PM when the IDF took over the property. The family is now back in their home.

Also today:

In Dier Katis, near Ramallah, bulldozers leveled 12 dunoms of land to expand the settlement of Kiryat Sefer.

In Rantis (Northwest of Ramallah) settlers cut 20 olive trees .

In downtown Hebron, settlers continued their ongoing attacks on the Palestinian population and attacked the vegetable market and shops. Several Palestinian journalists from the local television were injured

See our weekly Settler Violence Reports (since 2000) here