Israeli settlers Wednesday assaulted a Palestinian in Huwara town, south of Nablus city, according to a local activist.

Ghassan Daghlas, who monitors Israeli colonial settlement activities in the northern West Bank, said that a group of settlers spewed pepper spray in the face of a man after the latter attempted to confront them.

The man attempted to prevent the assailants, who stormed the town, from removing the Palestine flag hoisted in the main street.

In the aftermath of the attack, a sizable army force arrived at the scene to protect the assailants.

Similar confrontations recently took place when settlers, under military protection, or the Israeli military took down the Palestine flags hoisted on electrical poles in town.

The cluster of villages and towns in Nablus district has been a scene of frequent settler attacks, including chopping down dozens of olive trees, attacking vulnerable houses, leveling farmlands and torching mosques.

There are over 700,000 Israeli settlers living in colonial settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Source: Palestine News & Info Agency