By Anees Bargouthi

RAMALLAH, (AA): Over a thousand Israeli settlers stormed a local shrine in the West Bank city of Nablus on Thursday, triggering clashes with Palestinian youths.

“At least 1,150 Israeli settlers forced their way into the [Joseph’s Tomb] shrine under the protection of the Israeli army and performed Talmudic rituals,” Ahmed Shamekh, a senior official at the nearby Balata refugee camp, told Anadolu Agency.

Shamekh said scores of Palestinian youths gathered to protest the storming, but Israeli soldiers responded with rubber bullets and tear gas, leaving at least three protesters injured.

Joseph’s Tomb has long been a flashpoint for violence between Muslim worshipers and extremist Jewish settlers.

Jews believe the site represents the burial place of the biblical patriarch Joseph.

Muslims, however, challenge this claim, saying a Muslim imam – Sheikh Yussef Dawiqat – was buried at the site two centuries ago.

[Photo: Israelis inside Joseph’s Tomb. Photo taken in 2009. Photographer: Daniel Ventura/Creative Commons]