Ultra-Orthodox settlers set fire to Nablus mosque

Two news reports on settler attacks on Palestinian property
PA: Settlers torch Nablus mosque
Ma’an News
06.09.11

NABLUS — Ultra-Orthodox Jewish settlers on Monday set fire to a mosque near Nablus area in the northern West Bank, Palestinian Authority officials said.

Settlers broke into Al-Nurayn mosque in Qusra, south of Nablus, smashing windows before setting fire to used tires inside the building, locals told a Ma’an correspondent.

PA settlement affairs official Ghassan Doughlas confirmed the incident and urged the international Quartet — the US, EU, UN and Russia — to pressure Israel to stop such attacks.

“This is not the first time settlers attack mosques,” he said, adding that it was the 25th attack on Muslim or Christian places of worship since 2010, and the second such attack in Nablus this year.

Sheik Nafith Samih, the Imam of the mosque, said Molotov cocktails had been thrown into the building.

“Worshipers arrived at the mosque around 4 a.m. and performed the dawn prayer before some worshipers started to shout, ‘the mosque has been torched.’

“We went down to the lower floor, where women usually pray and found that several tires were torched inside. We realized that it was settlers,” the Imam said.

Head of Qusra council Hani Abu Reida says the village, home to 5,500 Palestinians, is surrounded by Israeli settlements and outposts and residents are regularly attacked by settlers. Last week settlers raided homes and shot a young man, he added.

An AFP correspondent said Hebrew graffiti on the outside walls of the mosque included insults against the Prophet Mohammed, a Star of David, and “Migron” — the name of a settlement outpost near Ramallah which was partially dismantled by Israeli police overnight.

The pre-dawn attack came as hundreds of police and soldiers entered Migron and dismantled three structures after those living there were evacuated, police said, adding that the move had been approved by court.

“Six settlers who tried to prevent the demolition were arrested after attacking the forces,” spokeswoman Luba Samri told AFP.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak had ordered the three structures be taken down in June. In early August, the Supreme Court issued an identical order, although it gave the authorities until March 2012 to implement the decision.

Hardline settlers have adopted what they call a “price tag” policy under which they attack Palestinians and their property in response to Israeli government measures against settlements.

Israel considers settlement outposts built in the West Bank without government approval to be illegal, and often sends security personnel to demolish them. They usually consist of little more than a few trailers.

The international community considers all settlements built in the occupied West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, to be illegal.

Separately, witnesses said dozens of settlers gathered to throw rocks at Palestinian vehicles near Yitzhar settlement between Huwwara and Nablus on Monday morning.

Settler-related incidents resulting in Palestinian injuries and damage to property are up more than 50 percent this year, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which documents violence in the Palestinian territories.

On Tuesday, the Israeli army confirmed it was training settlers in the West Bank to repel any violent protests in the territories when the Palestinians try to secure UN membership later this month.

The Israeli daily Haaretz reported that the military had been training settlement security chiefs and their teams and giving them tear gas and stun grenades to equip them to handle any unrest which breaks out during the UN campaign.

Most settlers already have assault rifles or pistols.

AFP contributed to this report.

Barghouthi: Settlers could commit massacre

Ma’an News, 07.09.11

BETHLEHEM  — Palestinian lawmaker Mustafa Barghouthi on Monday warned of a conspiracy between the Israeli government and Jewish settlers to attack Palestinians ahead of the upcoming bid for UN membership.

Barghouthi told Ma’an that Monday’s attack on a mosque in the northern West Bank was “a very dangerous development” and noted it was not an isolated incident.

Palestinian Authority settlement affairs official Ghassan Doughlas said Jewish settlers set fire to tires and smashed windows in Al-Nurayn mosque in Qusra, south of Nablus early Monday morning.

Hebrew-language graffiti reading “Mohammad is a pig” and the star of David were sprayed on the building.

“Migron and Eli Ayn are social justice” was also sprayed on the mosque referring to two illegal outposts.

Also on Monday, settlers from Betar Illit settlement flooded Palestinian farmland near Bethlehem with sewage while settlers in Nablus set fire to vast areas of Palestinian land in Burin.

Barghouthi said the attacks were “part of a plan” to use settlers to attack Palestinians, and that the Israeli military was participating in “organized crime” with settlers in the West Bank.

“These people are extremists and we warn that they could commit massacres against the Palestinians.”

He noted that the army was providing settlers with military facilities.

Settler and military officials said last week that Israel’s army has been training Jewish settlers to deal with any eruption of Palestinian protests alongside a planned bid for statehood at the United Nations this month.

The Israeli Haaretz said the military had been training settlement security chiefs and their teams and giving them tear gas and stun grenades. Most settlers already have assault rifles or pistols.

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad denounced Monday’s attack on the West Bank mosque as an act of terrorism.

“These acts are what threaten to pull the region into a cycle of violence,” Fayyad’s office said in a statement, adding that the Palestinians themselves would not revert to violence.

Fayyad’s office criticized the Israeli police for failing to track down those behind previous such violence.

“The prime minister holds Israel completely responsible for the continuation of these terrorist acts because of its failure to pursue the perpetrators of this type of attack on previous occasions and bring them to account,” its statement said.

Annual figures compiled by Israeli rights group Yesh Din have repeatedly shown that nine out of 10 Israeli police investigations of settler crimes fail to lead to a prosecution.

Palestinian Authority Minister of Religious Affairs Mahmoud al-Habbash also condemned the attack.

“Continuation of such a racist policy against holy places is very dangerous and will lead to unfavorable consequence and tension in the region. All efforts to achieve peace and stability will be thwarted as racial aggressions continue,” he said in a statement.

In the Gaza Strip, Hamas lawmakers denounced what they called an “Israeli crime.”

“This is a criminal act and a new Israeli religious war indicating how ugly occupation is,” the lawmakers said in a statement.

The Islamic Jihad movement in Gaza said the attack was “new evidence of the Jews’ grudge towards our people and nation, and their enmity to our religion and holy places.”

Reuters contributed to this report.