ISRAEL launched a new crackdown in the occupied West Bank yesterday after a settler was shot dead on Tuesday night.

The lockdown around Nablus came as Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki accused the US of giving the green light to 1,285 new homes in illegal Israeli settlements.

Israeli occupation forces set up roadblocks and cordoned off and searched Palestinian villages around Nablus, searching for the suspects in Tuesday’s attack near the illegal Havat Gilad settlement.