A few carloads of Jewish settlers — outraged at the deaths on Thursday night of a mother and three of her children in their own home, as well as that of a security guard — drove to a nearby village and shot an Arab man dead.

Mourning Spawns Revenge for Israeli Settlers
The mourners, maybe 3,000 of them, were angry. They scuffled here with the Israeli police and the army this afternoon. They bought T-shirts that read, "No Arabs, no attacks."

Then, at the end of a week of violence, something happened that laid bare this conflict's widening circle of hate, violence and revenge. A few carloads of Jewish settlers — outraged at the deaths on Thursday night of a mother and three of her children in their own home, as well as that of a security guard — drove to a nearby village and shot an Arab man dead.

"They wanted to kill," Abdul Odeh said not long after the body of his younger brother, Adnan, 22, a stonecutter, was taken away.

Less than 24 hours separated the deaths. Less than two miles separates the Jewish settlement of Itamar and the Arab village of Burin, where Mr. Odeh lived.

But the distance between the two sides seemed vast when viewed through the lens of these dual tragedies. Even on normal days, tension is high around the settlements, where Jewish families have built homes and are expanding rapidly on what had been Palestinian land.

Today almost no one on either side spoke of compromise or of sympathy for the other's dead.

"These are people who came to our land," said Mr. Odeh, 34, a teacher and Adnan's oldest brother. "They built their homes. When someone comes into your house and steals a room, what do you do? Do you stand still?"

Less than a month ago, three yeshiva students were also killed by a Palestinian gunman who sneaked into Itamar, a militant settlement where residents have resisted building a strong fence, on the grounds that they should not have to wall off what they see as their own land.

"After the last attack, I told you we're in a terrible situation and there was panic," one woman said. "And you said there was no problem."

Anger at the military ran so high at the funeral that scuffles broke out between settlers and the police and the army during the eulogies. The word "vengeance" was scrawled in the windshield dust of several cars, suggesting that some contemplated taking the law into their own hands.

The anger spilled over as mourners left the hilltop settlement after the burials, driving south through the Arab village of Huwara, which had been under curfew since 11 a.m. to prevent any attacks from settlers. About half a dozen cars left the main road to come to the village of farms and olive trees. Residents said the settlers began throwing stones at houses, which crashed through windows, striking one woman in the forehead.

Abdul Odeh had been working inside the small family grocery with his youngest brother, but he locked the door and left when the settlers came. The settlers set two cars on fire, one of them in front of the Odeh family house, where members of the family gathered on the roof.

The two sides shouted at each other and threw stones. The settlers fired off several rounds of bullets at the house and the rooftop crowd, one of them striking Adnan Odeh in the chest. He died almost instantly, his brothers said.

"We are full of anger," said Ali Omar, 36, a Palestinian Authority police officer who is a cousin of he dead man.

Another cousin, Muhammad Salih, added: "The settlers want us to leave this country. They burned our lands, attacked our houses and kill us. They want us to leave. But we will die here and will not leave."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/22/international/middleeast/22SETT.html