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NABLUS (Ma'an) -- Dozens of Israeli settlers from the Yitzhar settlement took over land in the Huwwara village in southern Nablus, official says.

Ghassan Daghlas, an official who monitors settlement activity in the northern West Bank, told Ma'an the settlers took over land belonging to Palestinian Yasser Mutie Hussein Ali, planting grapevines in the area.

Villages south of Nablus are a frequent site of settler violence and Palestinian clashes with Israeli forces, where locals often attack locals and prevent farmers from reaching their land, in addition to attacks on Palestinian harvest itself.

Yitzhar is notoriously violent, with Israeli security forces estimating the majority of a 2014 wave of anti-Palestinian hate crimes were carried out by residents of the settlement, according to Israeli media.

Yitzhar residents originally settled on 18 dunams (0.02 square km) of land from neighboring Palestinian villages in 1983 and has steadily grown outward, today covering over 1800 dunums (1.8 square kilometers).

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that over 7500 dunums (7.5 square kilometers) were mostly inaccessible to Palestinians due to violence from residents of the Jewish-only settlement, as of 2012.

Palestinian locals in the Nablus district face regular restriction on movement and heavy presence of Israeli forces due to high levels of settlers residing in the area, forces closing an area checkpoint Wednesday morning and sealing off the entrance to the Burin village earlier this month.