West Bank: Two mosques set on fire by settlers

Israeli settlers set fire to two mosques in the northern occupied West Bank overnight Saturday to Sunday, according to Palestinian officials, amid heightened tensions following clashes that left six dead on Friday.

Violence has exploded in the West Bank since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, including near-daily attacks by Israeli settlers and regular raids on Palestinian villages.

In Qousra, south of Nablus, settlers set fire to a religious building under construction, the city's mayor, Abdel Azim Wadi, told AFP.

"The fire destroyed the entrance to the mosque and even damaged the masonry," he said, adding that graffiti in Hebrew, including the word "vengeance," had been written on the walls.

On Friday, four Palestinians and two Israelis died in clashes in the Palestinian village of Tell, near Nablus, where settlers had entered.

The Israeli army indicated that its soldiers, dispatched to Qousra after a report, had "searched for the suspects, who fled before their arrival", and "observed traces of arson and graffiti at the scene".

A second incident occurred in the village of Kour, near Tuulkarem, where another mosque was targeted with "fire and racist graffiti," according to the Palestinian Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs.

After the clashes in Tell on Friday, Israel announced a large-scale operation in the northern West Bank, occupied since 1967, particularly in Nablus.

On Saturday, the city was largely paralyzed, with long queues stretching out at gas stations amid fuel shortages, according to an AFP journalist on the scene.

According to an AFP tally, based on data from the Palestinian Ministry of Health, at least 1,094 Palestinians, combatants or civilians, have been killed by Israeli soldiers or settlers since October 2023 in the West Bank.

According to official Israeli figures, at least 48 Israelis, both civilians and military personnel, have been killed there in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations.

The peak in violence in recent years has gone hand in hand with a proliferation of settlements, with part of the Israeli political class not hiding its desire to annex the West Bank.

Some 500,000 Israelis live in settlements in the West Bank, considered illegal under international law, alongside approximately three million Palestinians.