Palestinian villagers on Tuesday briefly detained and beat up a group of Israeli settlers (pictured above), accusing them of having thrown rocks at farmers tending their fields in the occupied West Bank.
The incident - the details of which were disputed by a representative of a nearby settlement - stoked tensions long simmering on land where Palestinians seek statehood under struggling U.S.-sponsored peace negotiations with Israel.
Yet with several alleged settler assailants in Israeli police custody after they were extricated from Qusra village by the army, and no immediate repercussions for the Palestinians involved, the incident may signal a new toughness by the Jewish state in tackling violent ultranationalists.
"I was tending my fields when a group of around 30 settlers came down the hill and attacked us with stones," Palestinian farmer Mahmoud Tubasi told Reuters.
"We chased them and they fled to a house under construction. They were cornered there and some of the people here beat them - they had attacked us on our own land."
The Palestinians later released the group to Israeli soldiers.
