Jewish settlers attack Palestinian towns

BEIT FURIK, West Bank

Jewish settlers mounted a string of attacks on Palestinian towns in the occupied West Bank overnight, burning homes and clashing with Israeli troops.

There were no immediate reports of any Palestinian casualties.

The Israeli military said Jewish settlers attacked the village of Beit Furik after troops arrived in the area to dismantle an unauthorized farming outpost they had built nearby.

It said the settlers hurled stones, wounding two members of the paramilitary Border Police, and one group entered the village and burned property.

The West Bank has seen a surge in settler violence since the start of the war.

In Lebanon, a tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah has held despite Israeli forces carrying out several new drone and artillery strikes on Dec. 3, killing a shepherd in the country's south.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed keep striking “with an iron fist” against perceived Hezbollah violations of the ceasefire.

Hezbollah began launching rockets, drones and missiles into Israel last year in solidarity with Hamas militants who are fighting in the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, Palestinian medics said an Israeli airstrike on the Gaza Strip killed at least five people, including four children, on Dec. 4.

The Awda Hospital, which received the bodies, said the five were gathered outside of shelters in the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, which dates back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation.

The hospital said another 15 people, mostly children, were wounded in the strike.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

Seperately, Israel’s military said on Dec. 4 it had returned the bodies of two militants who crossed into Israel from Jordan in October and shot two soldiers.