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Itongadol.- Four Palestinians and two Israelis were wounded late Saturday in clashes near the West Bank city of Ramallah.
The scuffle began at around 10:30 P.M., while some 30 Israelis were demonstrating at the Doar Junction that leads to the settlements of Dolev and Talmon.
The settlers were protesting the deteriorating security condition on that particular road, where Palestinians have been hurling rocks and firebombs recently at passing Israeli vehicles.
After the Israel demonstrators blocked access to the nearby village of Ras A-Karkar, about 100 Palestinians came out and clashed with them. Demonstrators from both sides hurled rocks at each other, and the settlers claim that Palestinians struck them with sticks.
Two settlers were wounded in their heads, one of them moderately and the other lightly. They were both evacuated to the Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva. The condition of the moderately wounded person deteriorated over the course of the night, and he was taken in for surgery.
Israel Defense Forces troops were deployed at the scene, and fired rubber bullets to disperse the Palestinians. One Palestinian was moderately wounded after being struck in the eye. He was taken to hospital in Ramallah and then transferred to the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa.
A resident of Ras A-Karkar told Haaretz that a group of Israeli settlers entered the Ein Ayoub village overnight, vandalized homes and attempted to burn the neighboring fields. The villagers came out and chased them away, said the Palestinian witness.
The incident was the latest in a series of clashes after Israeli Eviatar Borovzky, a resident of the Yitzhar settlement, was stabbed to death last week by a Palestinian at the Tapuah Junction in the West Bank.