A Palestinian toddler was burned to death and three other Palestinians severely injured on Friday morning when their house in the occupied West Bank was set on fire by Israeli settlers, Maan Palestnian news agency reported on Friday.

According to Maan, the settlers smashed the windows of two homes in the village of Duma near Nablus and threw Molotov cocktails inside the buildings. Eighteen-month old Ali Saad Dawabsha died after sustaining serious burns as a result of the attack.

The parents of the toddler, Riham and Saad, and their other son Ahmad, were severely injured and were taken to hospital.

The settlers also sprayed slogans "revenge" and "long live the messiah" on both homes, according to local media reports.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, called the attack "an act of terrorism in every respect" and ordered security forces to hunt down the attackers.

A few days earlier Netanyahu controversially approved 300 new settler homes in the occupied West Bank.

The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) said it held Netanyahu's government "fully responsible" for the death of  the toddler, saying that it was a direct consequence of decades of impunity for settler terrorism, AFP reported.

On Twitter, pro-Palestine activists denounced the attack and blamed the Israeli administration and the mainstream media for their poor coverage of the incident.

"If God forbid, an Israeli infant burned to death in an arson attack, it would be the top headline of every newspaper tomorrow," commented Joe Catron, a Gaza-based US activist, on Twitter.