A mosque in a village near
Bethlehem was set alight early Wednesday morning and anti-Arab graffiti
was sprayed on it walls, the Palestinian Maan news agency reported.
Worshipers
arriving for prayers at the mosque in Jab’a, which lies to the west of
Bethlehem, discovered the fire and quickly put it out. The carpeting
inside and the walls of the building were damaged but there were no
reports of injuries.
Eyewitnesses said the offensive graffiti, written in Hebrew, called for revenge attacks against Arabs and Muslims.
Local Palestinians believe the arson attack was the work of Jewish settlers.
Right-wing extremists have in the past carried
out numerous arson and graffiti attacks on Arab property in the West
Bank and also Jerusalem under the “price tag” slogan.
An
Israeli soldier stands guard outside a mosque that was torched
overnight with anti-Arab slogans in Hebrew sprayed on its walls, in the
West Bank village of al-Jaba, southwest of Bethlehem, February 25, 2015.
(photo credit: AFP/MUSA AL-SHAER)
However, the phrase “price tag” did not appear to have been used in the graffiti sprayed on the walls of the targeted mosque.
Earlier this month a West Bank settler was sentenced to three years in prison after being convicted of a racially motivated arson attack in a West Bank village in 2013.
The Lod District Court ruled the incident a
“price tag” hate crime and additionally sentenced Binyamin Richter to 12
months probation and ordered him to pay NIS 15,000 ($3,900) as
compensation to the owners of the property that was damaged in the
attack.
Palestinian
Imam Ibrahim Abu Luha shows a burnt Koran, Islam’s holy book, after a
mosque was torched overnight in the West Bank village of al-Jaba,
southwest of Bethlehem, February 25, 2015 .(photo credit: AFP/MUSA
AL-SHAER)
Last month, over a dozen members of the
extremist group Lehava were arrested in connection with a price tag
arson attack on a bilingual Arabic-Hebrew school in November.
While attacks targeting Palestinian property
and holy sites are roundly condemned by Israeli politicians and
religious leaders, security officials have often struggled to bring
suspected perpetrators to trial.
Read more: Mosque torched near Bethlehem in apparent hate crime | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/mosque-torched-near-bethlehem-in-apparent-hate-crime/#ixzz3SknDCuqm
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