WEST BANK, Oct 17 - Confrontations erupted yesterday evening, Saturday, after a group of Israeli settlers attacked homes of Palestinians in the village of Burin, south of Nablus, in the northern occupied West Bank, leaving many injured. 

The Palestinian Red Crescent reported that its ambulance crews treated 8 Palestinian suffocation cases and 4 others who sustained bruises during confrontations with Zionist settlers in Burin.

More than 30 Israeli settlers attacked the house of Ibrahim Adel Eid, east of Burin, under the protection of the occupation forces, local sources reported. Meanwhile, they were stopped by the Palestinian residents after they set fire to some farmlands belonging to Palestinians. 

Residents of settlements adjacent to Palestinian villages and towns continuously attack the Palestinian farmlands and shepherds under the protection of the occupation forces. 

Burin town has been the scene of frequent settler attacks, including uprooting fully grown olive trees, setting fire to fields and crops, stealing the olive harvest, attacking olive harvesters and foreign volunteers, and throwing Molotov Cocktails at houses in the town.

The number of settlers living in colonial settlements across occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank in violation of international law has jumped to over 700,000 and colonial settlement expansion has tripled since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993.