Israeli settlers and Palestinians clashed on Wednesday evening close to a new illegal outpost established by Israel in the northern West Bank.

The sides presented conflicting accounts of the altercation, with Palestinian media outlets first reporting that settlers had attacked homes in the village of Burqa adjacent to the Homesh outpost. Shortly afterward, a Homesh spokesperson issued a statement saying that “dozens” of Palestinians had marched toward the settlement, threw stones at the IDF soldiers and settlers present, and set fires close by.

The Homesh statement added that soldiers forced the Palestinians back to Burqa.

The IDF did not immediately issue its own readout on the incident.

The new outpost consists of a makeshift yeshiva that was illegally transferred overnight Sunday from privately owned Palestinian land on an adjacent hilltop. The transfer was required in order to pave the way for the government to legalize Homesh amid longstanding pressure from the settler lobby. No building permits were issued for the transfer, and the security establishment expressed its opposition, fearing that formalizing settler presence in the flashpoint........

© The Times of Israel