Israeli occupiers set fire to West Bank mosque

They sprayed graffiti blaspheming the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) on several of the mosque's walls and 15 Qur'ans and the mosque's carpet were burned, said Ali Thawabti, a municipal council official in the village of Beit Fajjar.

He said residents put out the fire and "settlers got into their white Peugeot and sped away."

Palestinian witnesses said that a skirmish broke out between some villagers and the occupiers following the attack, the latest in so-called "price tag" attacks intended to warn the Israeli government against making concessions regarding settlement building in the West Bank.

Monday's incident raises the number of mosques vandalized by occupiers in the West Bank to four. In May, they torched a mosque in the village of Al-Libban Al-Sharqiyeh, to the north of Ramallah. Last December, a mosque was set on fire in the village of Yasouf, to the southwest of Nablus, and the words "price tag" were also sprayed.

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