Israeli settlers torch Palestinian olive trees in revenge attack

Israeli settlers have torched Palestinian olive trees in a "revenge attack" after being evicted from an illegal settlement outpost in occupied Nablus.

Human rights group Yesh Din said on Monday that an illegal settlement was set up in July close by to the village of Kafr Qalil, south of Nablus city.

The illegal outpost was dismantled by the Israeli army, but then reconstructed again by the settlers, Yesh Din told Palestine based Maan News Agency.

Israel's civil administration and the Israeli army had then arrived to evacuate the settlement. 

Angry settlers then headed to Palestinian farmland and torched olive trees in Kafr Qalil.

Palestinian residents told Yesh Din that a shepherd from Kafr Qalil tried to reach the area that the settlement was built on but was chased away by the settlers.

The group said that its documentation of "ideologically motivated crimes" committed by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank has "revealed that the existence of unauthorised outposts creates growing circles of violence against Palestinians living and farming in the vicinity."

All Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories are viewed as illegal by the international community.