Cars torched, graffiti scrawled in West Bank village in apparent hate crime

Two cars were torched and Hebrew-language writing was discovered Tuesday morning in the Palestinian village of Fara’ata in the northern West Bank, in a suspected hate crime, the B’Tselem rights group said.

The Israel Police said officers were preparing to enter the village, aided by army forces, to collect evidence.

Photos from the scene published by the local council showed a burnt car and graffiti reading, “The Land of Israel [belongs] to the People of Israel.”

The Yesh Din rights group said there was a particularly violent three-month period from March through May during which Palestinian villages were targeted 44 times in so-called price tag attacks, apparently by extremist settlers.

Graffiti scrawled on a wall in the Palestinian village of Fara’ata in the northern West Bank in a suspected hate crime, August 4, 2020. (Fara’ata local council)

Of those cases, 21 involved violence against Palestinians while the remainder of the attacks targeted property, according to Yesh Din.

Fourteen of the incidents took place in the Nablus area of the northern West Bank, 10 were documented in the Ramallah area of the central West Bank and eight were reported in the Hebron area of the southern West Bank.

Despite dozens of hate crimes targeting Palestinians and their property over the past year, arrests of suspects have been exceedingly rare.