Governor of Salfit says the settlers had beforehand entered the village ‘beneath the safety of the Israeli military’.
Israeli settlers have set hearth to a mosque within the occupied West Financial institution, whereas additionally defacing the constructing’s facade with hateful and racist slogans akin to “Revenge” and “Dying to Arabs” spray-painted in Hebrew.
Abdallah Kamil, the governor of Salfit, stated on Friday that the assault focused the Bar al-Walidain mosque within the village of Marda, within the newest incident of settler violence.
“A bunch of settlers carried out an assault early this morning by setting hearth to the mosque,” Kamil stated in a press release.
One resident of the village informed AFP information company that the settlers “set hearth to the doorway of the mosque and wrote Hebrew slogans on its partitions”.
One other resident stated the hearth was extinguished earlier than it might engulf the whole construction.
Nasfat al-Khufash, head of the Marda village council, additionally confirmed the “systematic terror assault by a gaggle of settlers”, in an interview with Reuters information company.
The Israeli settlements on Palestinian land within the occupied West Financial institution are thought of unlawful by the United Nations and beneath worldwide regulation.
Governor Kamil stated that settlers had beforehand entered the village “beneath the safety of the Israeli military”, and that comparable acts of vandalism and graffiti had been reported in close by areas.
Palestine’s Ministry of Overseas Affairs in Ramallah condemned the incident, calling it a “blatant act of racism” and a mirrored image of the “widespread incitement campaigns towards our individuals carried out by components of the extremist right-wing ruling authorities” of Israel.
The Israeli police and Shin Wager safety providers stated in a joint assertion: “We see this incident as extraordinarily critical and can act resolutely to deliver the perpetrators to justice for rigorous trial.”
Settler violence within the illegally occupied West Financial institution has intensified because the conflict in Gaza started on October 7 final yr. As of October 2024, there have been at the least 1,400 settler assaults within the West Financial institution.
Because the begin of the conflict on Gaza, at the least 803 Palestinians have been killed within the West Financial institution by Israeli forces or settlers, in keeping with the Palestinian Well being Ministry.