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NABLUS (Ma'an) -- Palestinian security committees apprehended two armed Israeli settlers who obstructed the way for Palestinian farmers early Friday in the southern village of Talfit in the northern occupied West Bank district of Nablus.

Ghassan Daghlas, who monitors settlement activity in the northern West Bank, told Ma'an the settlers were armed and "obstructing the way of Palestinian farmers."

After taking the settlers to the Qablan Palestinian police station and confiscating their weapons, Palestinian security forces delivered them to Israeli authorities.

Israeli forces then set up a checkpoint in the area.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, there has been a total of 36 reported settler attacks against Palestinians and their properties in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since the start of 2016, and a total of 221 attacks in 2015.

There are some 600,000 Israeli settlers residing in 196 illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem, and a further 232 settler outposts considered illegal both by international law and Israeli domestic law, according to the Applied Research Institute - Jerusalem (ARIJ).