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NABLUS (Ma'an) -- Settlers set fire to wheat fields in Palestinian villages near Nablus on Sunday, witnesses said.

Four locations were set alight in the villages of al-Sawiya and al-Lubban al-Sharqiya, located by Eli settlement.

Palestinian Authority official Ghassan Daghlas said the arson attacks were designed to destroy the entire fields, adding that settlers attempt to burn Palestinian agricultural crops at the beginning of every summer.

Last Monday, a group of settlers set fire to wheat fields in the Hebron town of Yatta. Palestinians from nearby village Susiya found seven piles of harvested grain had been torched in a field near an Israeli settlement earlier last week.

In the West Bank, over 90 percent of villages which have experienced multiple attacks by settlers are under Israeli security control, The Palestine Center says, meaning local Palestinians only have the official protection of an army which they claim ignores settler violence.