Occupied Jerusalem: 18 March, 2001 - The family and relatives of a 10-year-old Palestinian child, who was found brutally murdered near a Jewish settlement around East Jerusalem Saturday, have accused Jewish settlers of stoning him to death.

The child, Muhammed Ismael Nassar, disappeared Friday afternoon and his bludgeoned and bruised body was found in a bush near the Jewish settlement of Navi Ya'ccoub.

The family said the boy went to play soccer at a playground opposite the settlement but failed to return home after nightfall.

"I don't have the slightest doubt that they (the settlers) did it, who else would commit a gruesome crime as such?," said the boy's uncle Amin Nassar.

The family complained that Israeli police utterly refused to carry out a search for the child and that a police superintendent told the boy's father "that this is none of our business, go and search for your son."

"They told us that they couldn't do anything, but they said they would give us searchlights."

The family vehemently denied and scoffed at police insinuations that the boy might have been the victim of a vendetta killing by Arabs.

"They just want to divert attention from the settlers, our family has no feuds or problems with anyone, I found their insinuation to that effect disgusting," said Nassar.

Ever since the outbreak of the Palestinian intifada or uprising more than five months ago, Jewish settlers have perpetrated some of the most gruesome murders in the West Bank.

In October, armed settlers murdered a Palestinian at the village of Beit Furik near Nablus in full view of his children while they were harvesting olive crops.

Israeli courts normally don't seriously prosecute settlers for murdering Palestinians on the grounds that the intifada is a war imposed on Israel and that excesses do happen in wars.