Israeli officials meet to discuss settler attacks

Israel's prime minister met with top security officials to discuss a rising tide of Israeli settler violence in the West Bank, an Israeli official said Friday, as fresh allegations surfaced of Israeli settlers hurling rocks at passing Palestinian vehicles in the West Bank village of Huwara.

- BY JULIA FRANKEL

Huwara Mayor Jihad Ouda said the stone throwing was quickly followed by a huge fire at a nearby scrapyard. Flames lighted the evening sky and sent massive columns of smoke into the air, images and video on social media showed. The military said it had reports that Israelis set the fire and that police were investigating.

The U.N. humanitarian office documented 29 attacks by settlers in the West Bank from Nov. 1-17, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters Friday. The attacks caused 11 injuries and damage to 10 homes, two mosques and nearly two dozen vehicles, as well as damage to crops, livestock, and roughly 1,000 trees and saplings, he said.

Israeli forces have killed more than 200 Palestinians in the West Bank so far this year, including 50 children, Dujarric said.

In the latest deaths, the Palestinian Health Ministry said two Palestinian youths aged 18 and 16 were killed by Israeli gunfire overnight. The circumstances of the shootings were not immediately clear. Israeli police did not immediately respond when asked to comment.

At the meeting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and officials from the military, the country’s Shin Bet domestic security service and the police discussed the recent spike in violence and proposals on curbing it, according to an Israeli official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not permitted to talk about a closed-door gathering. The official said proposals floated at the meeting included getting violent settlers to attend educational programs.