Four shot dead near West Bank settlement
Israeli forensics policemen walk at the scene of an attack near the Jewish settlement on Tuesday. AFP
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, a Ukrainian and an Italian this year.
In Huwara, near Nablus, around 100 Jewish settlers attacked residents and set fire to farmland, the mayor of the town and a resident told the media by telephone.
It was apparently a repeat of the sequence of events that followed a Palestinian attack in February that claimed the lives of two Israelis in the area.
An AFP reporter at the scene saw olive groves on fire.
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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.
The tally of Tuesday's attack compiled from official sources includes combatants as well as civilians and, on the Israeli side, three members of the Arab minority.
It took place at a petrol station near the Eli settlement, south of Nablus.
Four other people were wounded, according to Israel's Magen David Adom (MDA) emergency services.
Agence France-Presse
