Masked Israeli settlers launched a fresh assault on homes around the occupied West Bank village of Qusra, marking the first major attack since an earlier settler siege sparked international condemnation this month.
Witnesses said the attackers encircled a Palestinian home and pelted it with stones while seven people remained trapped inside.
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Saddam Oday, who was among those inside, said Israeli soldiers fired tear gas into the house before detaining the residents. He said the military later released him.
According to Mr Oday, no settlers were detained. Instead, the attackers were allowed to leave the area.
The Israeli military said troops and border police had gone to the scene to remove what it called “rioters” and safeguard the people inside the house.
It did not immediately answer questions about reports that soldiers fired tear gas into the home or detained and beat the residents.
Residents said the Israeli military fired tear gas into a home and did not detain any of the settlers
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued his first public comments on the violence in Qusra, condemning what he described as the actions of a “handful of rioters”.
“I strongly condemn the criminal acts of violence committed in the villages of Qusra and Jalud,” Mr Netanyahu said, referring to a separate incident in the neighbouring village.
US and Israeli officials said Washington had pressed Mr Netanyahu two weeks ago to publicly denounce the militant settlers who had surrounded Palestinians inside their homes.
The Israeli government has repeatedly portrayed settler violence as the work of a “fringe minority”, though rights groups have challenged that description in their findings.
A UN inquiry published in June said Israeli authorities were directly involved in settler attacks that have killed, wounded and displaced Palestinians across the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli mission in Geneva rejected the inquiry’s conclusions.
Resident reports near-daily encroachments
Mr Bayruti said he contacted the Israeli military for assistance but remained trapped inside the house with six other people for more than an hour as settlers continued throwing stones.
He showed a reporter his bandaged arm, saying a stone had struck and injured him during the attack.
Mr Oday, who works as a medic, said four of those inside were hurt by tear gas, while two others suffered injuries from stones thrown by the settlers.
Israeli settlers sit on the balcony of Palestinian homes under construction in the village of Qusra
The attack took place several hundred metres from three homes that settlers surrounded earlier this month. That incident prompted international condemnation and led to a major Israeli military deployment, which residents say has effectively confined them to their homes.
“They spotted the residents working on their house, which is still under construction and they started throwing rocks,” said Loui Ridi, a Palestinian-American whose home was among the three targeted in the earlier siege.
Mr Ridi said he watched the latest assault from inside his home.
Despite the large Israeli military presence, he said, Israeli settlers had continued making near-daily incursions into the area around his house.
Settler violence on the rise
Rights groups say the growing presence of settlers along the outskirts of Palestinian villages such as Qusra forms part of a broader campaign to take more land from Palestinians, further narrowing the territory where Palestinians seek to establish an independent state.
Settler violence has intensified across the occupied West Bank, with rights advocates saying some attackers have been emboldened by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which has overseen a significant expansion of settlements in the territory.
UN bodies and most countries consider the settlements illegal under international law governing military occupations.
