Police arrest four Yitzhar residents following clashes with Palestinians

Police on Wednesday arrested residents of the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar after a clash with Palestinians who were harvesting olives near their community.

The non- governmental group Rabbis for Human Rights accused settlers of throwing stones at the harvesters, injuring a Palestinian man and a British peace activist. They sent media outlets a photo of the injured Palestinian, who is seen with a bandage over his head and his arm in a sling.

The group further charged that a security officer from a nearby settlement was also involved in the incident and had shot in the air.

It later released a video of young masked men, presumed to be settlers, vandalizing a Palestinian vehicle parked by an olive grove.

A Yitzhar spokesman, however, said those arrested were heroes and not villains because they had attempted to stop a terrorist who joined the olive harvest so he could move close to the settlement.

He added that the terrorist had thrown stones at a female resident of Yitzhar, and later released a photo of the stone.

“We’ve moved quickly back to a normal situation in which the enemy is allowed to harvest olives close to the community,” the spokesman said.

Police said the stone-throwing by Yitzhar residents followed an incident in which Palestinians threw stones at an Israeli vehicle, but “that still doesn’t give people the right to take the law into their own hands.”