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ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS-CONFLICT-MOSQUE,LEAD
Suspected arson at east Jerusalem mosque: police
JERUSALEM, Jan 24, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Israeli police launched a manhunt
Friday after an apparent arson attack, accompanied by Hebrew-language
graffiti, at a mosque in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.
“Police were summoned to a mosque in Beit Safafa, in Jerusalem, following a
report of arson in one of the building’s rooms and spraying of graffiti on a
nearby wall outside the building,” a police statement said.
“A widescale search is taking place in Jerusalem,” police spokesman Micky
Rosenfeld told AFP. “We believe that the incident took place overnight. We
are searching for suspects.”
The spokesman would not say if police viewed it as a hate crime.
The graffiti, on a wall in the mosque compound and viewed by an AFP
journalist, contained the name Kumi Ori, a small settlement outpost in the
north of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The Times of Israel newspaper said Friday that the wildcat outpost “is home
to seven families along with roughly a dozen extremist Israeli teens”.
“Earlier this month security forces razed a pair of illegally built settler
homes in the outpost,” it reported.
All settlements on occupied Palestinian land are considered illegal under
international law, but Israel distinguishes between those it has approved and
those it has not.
The paper said that “a number of young settlers living there were involved
in a string of violent attacks on Palestinians and (Israeli) security
forces.”
Police said that nobody was injured in the mosque incident.
The attack had the appearance of a “price tag” attack, a euphemism for
Jewish nationalist-motivated hate crimes that generally target Palestinian or
Arab Israeli property in revenge for nationalistic attacks against Israelis
or Israeli government moves against unauthorised outposts like Kumi Ori.
“This is price tag,” Israeli Arab lawmaker Osama Saadi told AFP at the
scene.
“The settlers didn’t only write words, they also burnt the place and they
burnt a Koran,” said Saadi, who lives in the area.
Ismail Awwad, the local mayor, said he called the police after he found
apparent evidence of arson, pointing to an empty can he said had contained
petrol or some other accelerant and scorchmarks in the burnt room.
“The fire in the mosque burned in many straight lines which is a sign that
somebody poured inflammable material,” he said.
There was damage to an interior prayer room but the building’s structure
was unharmed.
In December, more than 160 cars were vandalised in the Shuafaat
neighbourhood of east Jerusalem with anti-Arab slogans scrawled nearby.
The slogans read “Arabs=enemies”, “There is no room in the country for
enemies” and “When Jews are stabbed we aren’t silent”.
The attackers were described by a local resident as “masked settlers.”
BSS/AFP/RY/1945 hrs