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Israeli settlers damaged houses and cars in two Palestinian villages on Tuesday, witnesses said, after Israel's demolition of homes in an unauthorized settler outpost.
Villagers in Hiwwara in the occupied West Bank said settlers threw petrol bombs into a house, broke the windows of another, and burned several cars in the overnight rampage before moving on to nearby Burin, where Israeli soldiers prevented them from attacking a mosque.
There were no reports of injuries. An Israeli police spokesman said the incident was being investigated.
"We tried to put off the fire but we could not, because it was huge. The whole front room burned down and part of the sitting room," said Rami Edmeidi, the owner of the home that came under attack in Hiwwara.
The violence followed the bulldozing on Monday by Israeli authorities of two homes at Havat Gilad, a hilltop West Bank settlement built without Israeli government permission.
The demolition at Havat Gilad followed Washington's veto on Feb. 18 of a draft U.N. Security Council that described all Israeli settlements as "illegal" and urged Israel to "immediately and completely" halt settlement activity.
In remarks to legislators from his right-wing Likud party on Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu -- whose refusal to renew a halt to building in settlements led to the collapse of 'peace talks' with the Palestinians -- hinted he was limiting the scope of construction as a result of international pressure.
Netanyahu told the forum, according to a Likud spokesman, that while construction is under way in West Bank settlements, "in some places there are no (building) tenders".
Israel faces "a very difficult international reality, and the U.S. veto in the Security Council was achieved with great efforts", he was quoted as saying.
Anger was high among settler activists in response to the use by police of plastic-coated paint bullets to quash resistance at Havat Gilad.
It was the first time the non-lethal weapon was used against settlers, eight of whom were arrested. "Bibi, at Havat Gilad, you shot yourself in the foot," read posters, citing Netanyahu's nickname, at bus stops outside West Bank settlements.
Likud legislator Danny Danon said he and other settler supporters in the party intend to ratchet up pressure on Netanyahu to boost construction in settlements.
Some 500,000 Israelis have moved into the West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas Israel occupied after the 1967 war.
PHOTO CAPTION
Israeli soldiers erect the national flag at a checkpoint near Nablus, 2009.
Reuters
