Israeli military says it failed to protect civilians in settler attack on Palestinians

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The Israeli military said on Wednesday that it had failed to protect civilians when settlers carried out a deadly attack on a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank, amid mounting international pressure on Israel to crack down on such violence.

Four suspects have been arrested over the attack in the village of Jit on Aug. 15, when around 100 settlers went on a rampage, burning cars and houses and killing at least one Palestinian. Additional arrests are planned, the military said.

In a report on its investigation into the incident, the Israeli military said troops and police initially failed to manage the situation and should have acted more decisively.

"This is a very serious terror incident in which Israelis set out to deliberately harm the residents of the town of Jit," Avi Bluth, the head of the army's Central Command, said. "We failed by not succeeding in arriving earlier to protect them."

The report also said that off-duty members of a rapid response security team from a nearby settlement arrived in uniform without authorisation and "acted contrary to the authority defined for the members of the rapid response team".

Two members of the rapid response team were disciplined and their weapons confiscated.

The Jit attack was larger than recent raids by West Bank settlers but hardly unique, with violence against Palestinian villages already on the rise as settlement construction has spread unchecked across the West Bank and Israel wages war in Gaza after a cross-border assault by Palestinian militants.

However the Jit incident, coinciding with rising pressure on Israel from its Western allies to curb settler violence, drew unusually strong criticism in Israel as well, including from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and settlement leaders.

Prosecutions over settler violence are relatively rare.

On Wednesday, just as the findings of the investigation were published, the United States imposed sanctions on a Jewish West Bank settlement security official and on Hashomer Yosh, a non-governmental organisation that says it helps protect settlers.

Most countries deem Jewish settlements built on land Israel captured in a 1967 war to be illegal. Israel disputes this and cites historical and biblical ties to the land. Palestinians want the West Bank as part of a future independent state.

(Reporting by Emily Rose; editing by Mark Heinrich)