Four shot dead near West Bank settlement

Al-LUBBAN Palestine - Four people were shot and killed Tuesday near a settlement in the occupied West Bank, Israeli officials said, a day after an army raid in the territory left six Palestinians dead.

The deaths are the latest in a surge of violence linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which before Tuesday's shooting had killed at least 166 Palestinians, 21 Israelis and two foreigners this year, according to an AFP tally.

In Huwara, near Nablus, around 100 Jewish settlers attacked residents and set fire to olive groves, the mayor of the town and a resident told AFP by telephone.

It was an apparent repetition of the settler revenge attacks that followed a deadly Palestinian shooting in the town in February and drew international condemnation.

An AFP reporter at the scene saw olive groves on fire.

Several dozen people were wounded, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.

Other settler attacks were reported in the evening, in Al-Lubban al-Sharqiya, near Eli, and in Beit Furik, another town in the north of the West Bank.

AFP's overall tally includes combatants as well as civilians and, on the Israeli side, three members of the Arab minority.

- Gunmen 'neutralised' - The gunmen struck at a petrol station near the Eli settlement, south of Nablus.

Four other people were wounded, according to Israel's Magen David Adom emergency services.

The Israeli military said "a civilian in the area neutralised one of the terrorists" -- without giving further details on their condition.

A military spokesman said Israeli security forces "located and neutralised" a second assailant who had fled the scene in a stolen car, near the northern city of Tubas.

The Palestinian health ministry announced the body of a man "shot by the Israeli occupation" arrived at a hospital in Tubas.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since the Six-Day War of 1967 and, excluding annexed east Jerusalem, the territory is now home to around 490,000 Israelis who live in settlements considered illegal under international law.

Officials in the Eli settlement named one of those killed as resident Elisha Antman.

An AFP photographer saw Israeli police officers inspecting a partially covered body, as soldiers and medics stood nearby.

The area around the petrol station and an adjacent restaurant were sealed off with police tape.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli forces were "working on the ground in order to settle accounts with the murderers".

"Those who have attacked us are either in the grave or in prison, and so it will be here," he said in a statement.

Eliana Passentin, an Israeli settler and resident of Eli, said: "We should be able to live our lives every day without being afraid.

"This is our land, this is where we live and we will be strong," she told AFP at the scene.

The German foreign ministry condemned Tuesday's violence.

"Nothing can justify such terrorist attacks. Our thoughts are with the victims and their loved ones," it said in a statement.

The United States too condemned the bloodshed. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Washington was "concerned about the continuation of violence in Israel and the West Bank in recent weeks that has killed and injured Palestinian and Israeli civilians".

- Deadly raid in Jenin - The shooting comes a day after Israeli forces launched a raid in the West Bank city of Jenin, in which six Palestinians were killed.

A spokesman for the Palestinian militant group Hamas, Hazem Qassem, described Tuesday's shooting as a "response to the crimes of the (Israeli) occupation" in Jenin and elsewhere.

Tariq Selmi, spokesman for the Islamic Jihad militant group, praised a "heroic commando operation" and described it as Palestinians exercising their "legitimate right to self-defence".

More than 90 Palestinians were wounded in the hours-long raid, according to health officials, while the Israeli military said eight security personnel were wounded.

Separately, Israeli troops killed 20-year-old Zakaria Mohammed al-Zaoul in the town of Husan near Bethlehem, the Palestinian health ministry said.

The Israeli military said "a suspect hurled Molotov cocktails" at soldiers, who "responded with live fire".

Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad identified Zaoul as a member - AFP