Middle East Monitor / February 26, 2020
Graffiti sprayed on a wall by illegal Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank sends a warning to local Palestinians that “There will be war”, Wafa news agency has reported. Vehicles were also vandalised along with the malicious graffiti during the suspected hate crime in Area C of Salfit in the central West Bank overnight on Tuesday.
Local sources confirmed that a group of settlers infiltrated the village of Yasuf, where they punctured the tyres of at least eight vehicles. Yasuf is located south of Nablus, in an area that experiences a lot of tension between Israeli settlers and local Palestinians.
Photos taken at the scene showed slashed tyres and a graffiti Star of David, alongside the words “In Judea and Samaria, there will be a war”. The illegal colonial-settlers used the Zionist term for the occupied West Bank in an attempt to legitimise their bogus claim to the land.
Palestinian activists and rights groups have pointed out that most of these attacks in the occupied territories and within Israel have been committed by an extremist settler group called “Price Tag”; prosecutions are rare, they added.
Nevertheless, according to the Jerusalem Post, the Israeli police and the Israel Defence Forces are preparing to enter Yasuf to investigate the incident.
Examples of settler violence against the indigenous population include arson attacks on homes, businesses and mosques; stone-throwing; and the uprooting of crops and olive trees.
Last month, an apparent “Price Tag” attack saw Israeli settlers setting fire to a classroom and spraying racist anti-Arab slogans on the walls, which carried threats to kill Palestinians in the occupied West Bank village of Einabus. The settlers came from the nearby illegal settlement of Yitzhar, and threw burning materials inside the classroom.
Despite such violence becoming increasingly common in the West Bank, the Israeli government still refuses to label the Price Tag group as a terrorist organisation, viewing it simply as an organised group of vandals.
