Jewish settlers defied growing public criticism and rampaged through an Arab West Bank village, shooting a teenage girl to death, wounding two other people and setting fire to a house and cars.
Security sources said the raid on Kifl Harith village was carried out Monday as Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, a hardliner who generally supports the settlers, denounced their vigilante attacks on Arabs and assaults on soldiers."It is inadmissible for anyone in the state of Israel to take the law into his own hands. There is the army; there are security forces. They alone have the authority to deal with matters of defense," Shamir said.
Settlers, accusing the government of failing to protect them, have raided Arab villages almost day and night for the last two weeks, firing shots, damaging property and hurling gasoline bombs.
Villagers said more than seven Jews took part in the raid. Troops found spent cartridges from an Uzi submachinegun. The army took one of the wounded to a hospital in Israel with serious head wounds.
The security sources said the settlers may have been carrying out a reprisal raid for the stoning of a Jewish group in which a rabbi was hurt.