Nablus/PNN/

Israeli settlers today evening set fire to large tracts of land belonging to Palestinian residents in the village of Burin to the south of Nablus, according to a local activist.

Ghassan Daghlas, who monitors Israeli settlement activities in the north of the West Bank, said that a number of settlers set fire to agricultural land planted with olive trees to the south of the village of Burin, destroying a large number of trees.

Israeli settler violence against Palestinians and their property is commonplace in the West Bank and is rarely prosecuted by Israeli authorities.

Settlement is a war crime according to the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The presence of settlers in the Palestinian territories violates the basic principles of international humanitarian law, said Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor.

“As they are responsible for settler violence, the Israeli authorities should put an end to double standards in dealing with events in the Palestinian territories and discourage settler violence by not protecting it,” it said.