Palestinian mosque torched in West Bank

A West Bank mosque was burnt down early Tuesday after unknown assailants, suspected to be extremist Israeli settlers, wrote racist slogans on its walls. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu condemned the torching of the mosque Tuesday and said the assailants would be brought to justice. "It is an act of intolerant and irresponsible hooligans and we will act swiftly to bring them to justice," Ynetnews.com quoted Netanyahu as saying hours after the mosque was set ablaze and graffiti sprayed on its walls in the West Bank village of Jaba, southeast of Ramallah. Eyewitnesses said in press statements: “People rushed to the mosque at 2am after the settlers infiltrated the village and set the mosque to fire.” They added: “They settlers wrote racist slogans calling for revenge against Palestinians because the prime minister was going to evacuate the Ulpana neighbourhood which is built on the Beit El settlement that is established on Palestinian land near Ramallah.” Israel's hawkish Defence Minister, Ehud Barak, called the act "deplorable" and said he had instructed the Israeli army to take the necessary steps to apprehend the assailants. The incident was also condemned by settler leaders, The Times of Israel said. Shortly after midnight locals said unknown assailants broke a mosque window and threw a lit match inside, causing the fire. "The war has just begun" and "You will pay the price" were spray painted on the exterior walls. Area residents extinguished the flames limiting the damage, one resident told Israel Radio. Israeli forces at the scene reportedly told residents that the mosque would be reconstructed. Local police have not ruled out the possibility the incident was a "price tag" attack, carried out by extremist settlers opposing the pending evacuation of settlers from the Ulpana neighbourhood in the West Bank settlement of Beit El next month. The Palestinian Authority, through the minister of Religious Endowments Mahmoud al-Habash, condemned the act, calling for an international intervention to prevent the repetition of such incidents. Habash said: "Settlers' efforts to burn mosques in the West Bank will lead to a religious war on holy sites within a racist plan through which the occupation [Israel] shows the extent of its disregard of Islamic sentiments." He called on international human rights organisations  concerned to intervene and monitor the events. Sheikh Azzam al-Khatib, the director of Islamic Religious Endowments in Jerusalem, said the acts were immoral. He said the Israeli government should deter the extremist settlers: “This issue may lead to undesired consequences, particularly as religion and religious sites are very sensitive matters.” The mosque is reportedly the sixth to be burnt in two years.