Salfit’s governor said the settlers had previously entered the village “under the protection of the Israeli army.”
Israeli settlers burned down a mosque in the occupied West Bank, while defacing the building’s facade with hateful and racist slogans such as “Revenge” and “Death to the Arabs” spray-painted in Hebrew.
Abdallah Kamil, the governor of Salfit, said Friday that the attack targeted the Bar al-Walidain mosque in the village of Marda, in the latest incident of settler violence.
“A group of settlers carried out an attack early this morning by burning down the mosque,” Kamil said in a statement.
A village resident told the AFP news agency that the settlers “set fire to the entrance to the mosque and wrote slogans in Hebrew on its walls.”
Another resident said the fire was put out before it could engulf the entire structure.
Nasfat al-Khufash, head of the Marda village council, also confirmed “a systematic terrorist attack carried out by a group of settlers” in an interview with the Reuters news agency.
Israeli settlements on Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank are considered illegal by the United Nations and under international law.
Governor Kamil said settlers had previously entered the village “under the protection of the Israeli army” and that similar vandalism and graffiti had been reported in nearby areas.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry in Ramallah condemned the incident, calling it a “blatant act of racism” and a reflection of “widespread incitement campaigns against our people carried out by elements of the ruling far-right government.” of Israel.
The Israeli police and Shin Bet security services said in a joint statement: “We consider this incident extremely serious and will act resolutely to bring the perpetrators to justice for a rigorous trial. »
Settler violence in the illegally occupied West Bank has intensified since the start of the Gaza war on October 7 last year. As of October 2024, there have been at least 1,400 settler attacks in the West Bank.
Since the start of the war on Gaza, at least 803 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces or settlers, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
