‘Death to Arabs’ graffitied on cars in Palestinian village
Hebrew slogans found in Jit include tribute to a jailed extremist who torched a Jewish-Arab school in Jerusalem
Racist anti-Arab graffiti was daubed on vehicles in the Palestinian West Bank village of Jit overnight Monday, and vandals slashed the tires on some of the vehicles.
Six vehicles were damaged in the attack with the tires of three of them punctured, police said in a statement.
Among the Hebrew slogans found were “Death to the Arabs” and “Transfer now,” a reference to the far-right notion of expelling all of the Palestinians to foreign countries.
Another read “Regards to Yitzhak Gabai,” a Jewish right-wing extremist imprisoned for torching a Jewish-Arab school in Jerusalem.
Gabai, 22 at the time, and brothers Nahman and Shlomo Twitto, were found guilty in September 2015 by the Jerusalem District Court of starting a fire at the Max Rayne Hand in Hand School in Jerusalem and spray-painting on the school’s walls messages such as “There is no coexistence with cancer”; “Death to the Arabs”; and “Kahane was right,” a reference to the late rabbi Meir Kahane, a mentor of the Jewish ultra-nationalist movement.
Forensics teams arrived to gather evidence from the scene and an investigation was opened, the police said.
Rabbis for Human Rights field worker Zacharia Sadeh, a resident of the village, told The Times of Israel that Monday night’s incident could have been much worse and called on Israeli security forces to do more to bring the perpetrators to justice.
It was the second such incident reported in two days, after on Monday morning several cars were similarly vandalized in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan.
Police opened an investigation after vandals slashed tires and daubed graffiti on vehicles in the Arab neighborhood.
Hebrew slogans sprayed onto the vehicles and walls included the phrases “Price tag” and “Regards from Itamar” — an apparent reference to Rabbi Itamar Ben-Gal, 29, who was stabbed to death outside the settlement of Ariel earlier this month.
Last month Israelis were filmed hurling rocks at the Palestinian villages of Farata and Jit in the hours after the funeral of an Israeli settler who was shot dead by a Palestinian terrorist. Significant damage was done to several homes.
Raziel Shevach, a 35-year-old father of six, was returning to his home January 9 when he was killed in a drive-by shooting outside the Havat Gilad outpost where he lived. Ahmad Nassar Jarrar, the suspected ringleader of the terror group responsible for the shooting, was killed last week in an IDF operation.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.