MEE Staff
Middle East Eye / June 22, 2023
The same masked men also set fire to a school and attempted to set fire to homes and mosque as well, news reports say.
A Jewish settler leaving a mosque in the Palestinian village of Orif, accompanied by a dog, was seen desecrating a Quran, security camera footage from Wednesday shows.
In the video, the man is seen ripping pages out of the Quran and throwing them on the ground in front of the mosque while other masked men look on.
The same masked men also set fire to a school and attempted to set fire to homes and the mosque as well, Haaretz reported. Residents told the news outlet that the settlers had entered the village from the direction of the nearby Yitzhar Jewish settlement.
The incident reportedly took place during the riots by Jewish settlers in the West Bank village of Orif on Wednesday. No arrests were made following this incident, The Jerusalem Post reported.
“The settlers’ assaults continue with no effort by the army to stop them,” a statement by Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights organization, said.
“The shocking footage demonstrates that the settlers’ sole purpose is to incite a riot by committing organized pogroms.”
Jewish settlers rampaged through several Palestinian towns in the West Bank on Tuesday night, torching cars, setting farmland on fire, and vandalizing homes, in scenes reminiscent of a pogrom earlier this year in the village of Huwara.
On Wednesday, hundreds of settlers, many of them armed, descended on the town of Turmusaya, protected by Israeli soldiers. The settlers attacked Palestinian residents, destroyed their property, and a 27-year-old Palestinian man was shot dead.
“We condemn these violent acts and also extend our condolences to the families of those affected,” said US State Department spokesperson, Vedant Patel, on Wednesday.
“Accountability and justice should be pursued with equal rigour in all cases of extremist violence.”
