RAMALLAH: Jewish occupiers on Friday attacked the West Bank village of Assirah Al-Qibliyah, in the southwest of Nablus, a Palestinian official said.

Ghassan Daghlas, the Palestinian Authority’s official monitoring settler activity in the northern West Bank, told Arab News that the occupiers from nearby Yitzhar settlement surrounded two homes in the village belonging to Jamal Yousef and Ahmed Dawood.

Daghlas said that violent clashes erupted between the Palestinian residents and the Jewish occupiers. No injuries or damage were reported.

Israeli Army has expressed concerned that occupiers may increase their opposition to the settlement freeze in the West Bank by targeting the Palestinian population, the daily Haaretz reported.

In recent days, Israeli inspectors delivering freeze orders have been subjected to violence by the occupiers, yet the Israeli troops — who are responsible for inspectors’ safety — are nowhere to be seen. Instead, Israeli police and Border Police troops are looking after their security.

Haaretz said that the right-wing Jewish activists are planning to block major traffic arteries throughout Israeli next week as part of an escalating protest against the government decision to freeze settlement construction in the West Bank for 10 months. The idea is to disrupt traffic at major junctions, similar to the protests held against the disengagement and evacuation of the Gaza Strip settlements in 2005. It is still unclear whether the idea is finding fertile ground or when such protests will take place, the report said.

However, the occupiers are also asking the Israeli public to donate money in order to help organize the protests. A bank account number has already been earmarked to that end.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with a group of more than 20 members of the council of Jewish settlements in Palestinian territories, where he stressed that “the law must be respected and Cabinet decisions must be carried out.”

The occupiers’ leaders vowed after the meeting to continue and resist the Israeli security forces and inspectors sent to enforce the construction freeze in West Bank Jewish settlements.

Netanyahu also blamed the Palestinian Authority for not responding to Israel’s decision to freeze settlement construction and for refusing to return to the negotiating table. Netanyahu called Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas “someone who refuses peace.”

The Palestinian side called the Israeli moratorium insufficient, as the restraint excluded some 3,000 settlement housing units already approved and construction in Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem.

The Palestinian leadership says that they would not return to the negotiation table until Israel totally freezes its construction in both the West Bank and East Jerusalem, an Arab-dominated section of the holy city that the Palestinians want to be the capital of their future state.

Meanwhile, an official of Hamas said on Friday Israeli objections to releasing certain prisoners are blocking a swap deal in which an Israeli soldier captured three years would be freed.

The deal is supposed to see the exchange of hundreds of Palestinians, including 450 chosen by Hamas, for soldier Gilad Shalit.

But negotiations are blocked on three main points, the Hamas official told an Arabic daily in an interview published on Friday.

“The negotiations on the Shalit deal face three obstacles including Israel’s objection to 50 prisoners included in the list of 450” presented by Hamas, the official said.

Israel is also insisting that 130 of the prisoners be expelled from the Palestinian territories and it refuses to release 22 Arab-Israeli prisoners, he said.

He denied recent reports Shalit had been brought to Egypt as part of the deal, saying “we have not yet agreed a deal, let alone begun the implementation.” — With input from agencies