The governor of Salfit says the settlers entered the village “under the protection of the Israeli army”.
Israeli settlers set fire to a mosque in the deserted West Bank, while also damaging the building's appearance with racist slogans such as “Revenge” and “Death to the Arabs” painted in Hebrew.
Abdallah Kamil, the governor of Salfit, said on Friday that the attack targeted the Bar al-Walidain mosque in the village of Marda, in the latest incident of violence by its residents.
“A group of settlers attacked this morning and set fire to the mosque,” Kamil said in a statement.
A resident of the village told AFP that the settlers “burned the door of the mosque and wrote Hebrew words on its walls”.
Another said that the fire was extinguished before it burnt down the whole house.
Nasfat al-Khufash, head of the Marda village council, confirmed the “terrorist attacks by a group of civilians”, in an interview with Reuters.
The Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories of the occupied West Bank they are considered illegal by the United Nations and under international law.
Governor Kamil said residents of the village entered the village “under the protection of the Israeli army”, and that similar vandalism and graffiti were also reported in nearby areas.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry in Ramallah condemned the incident, calling it an “act of discrimination” and a manifestation of “inciting propaganda against our people carried out by elements of the extremist right-wing government” of Israel.
The Israeli police and the Shin Bet security agency said in a joint statement: “We consider this case very serious and will be determined to ensure that the perpetrators are brought to justice.”
Settler violence in the West Bank has escalated since the war in Gaza began on October 7 last year. By October 2024, there will be at least 1,400 attacks in the West Bank.
Since the beginning of the war in Gaza, at least 803 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces or residents, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.