A Palestinian man tries to put out a fire set by Jewish settlers to Palestinian fields outside the village of Hawara and the Yitzhar settlement in the north of the occupied West Bank on Monday. Photo: AFP

Jewish settlers rampaged in the West Bank on Monday, wounding four Palestinians, as they vented fury that Israel may answer US calls and dismantle outposts in the territory, officials said.

Jewish extremists blocked roads, hurled rocks at drivers, burned fields, cut down olive trees and opened fire towards Palestinians who tried to chase the trespassers from their fields in the northern West Bank, witnesses said.

West of the city of Nablus, an area home to some of the most hardline settlers in the occupied territory, dozens of masked extremists blocked a road in the early hours and hurled rocks at Palestinian drivers who stopped their vehicles to move the obstructions, they said.

"They attacked when the minibus (carrying 17 Palestinian workers on their way to work in Israel) stopped. The man next to the driver was seriously wounded," said Zakaria Sada, an activist with the Rabbis for Human Rights organisation.

When another driver stopped his vehicle to move the stones in the road, the mob beat him until Israeli troops arrived on the scene, Sada said.

Four people were wounded in the attacks, and one remained in serious condition in hospital with a fractured skull, medics said.

Near the settlement of Yizhar -- one of the most radical in the West Bank -- heavy smoke billowed into the air as settlers set fire to Palestinian fields.