Palestinian cars daubed with Jewish stars, Hebrew slogan in apparent hate crime

Police opened an investigation after eight cars were vandalized overnight Tuesday in the northern West Bank Palestinian village of Luban a-Sharqiya, in an apparent hate crime.

Residents woke up to find their tires slashed and their vehicles spray-painted with Stars of David. One car was daubed with the Hebrew phrase “The eternal nation fights against murder.”

The incident came less than a week after a similar crime was reported in the adjacent Palestinian village of Turmusaya. The town’s security cameras captured four suspects, their faces obscured by hoods, running toward parked cars and smashing three windshields. Police opened a probe, but similar to virtually every apparent hate crime targeting Palestinians in the West Bank, no arrests have been made.

Two days earlier, police opened another investigation into the destruction of a vineyard in Hebron, which Israelis say was carried out by neighboring Palestinians. A Jewish farmer from the Tel Rumeida neighborhood arrived at his field to find dozens of grapevines chopped down and irrigation pipes damaged.

The Honenu legal aid organization representing the farmer claimed the vandalism was carried out by Palestinians, who had received an IDF permit early Wednesday morning to tend to their olive trees located in an adjacent field.

Last month, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs released new statistics ahead of the new year that showed a 69 percent increase in settler attacks on Palestinians in 2018 compared to 2017.

OCHA recorded 265 incidents in which Israeli residents of the West Bank allegedly targeted Palestinians or their property. In total, 115 Palestinians were injured in those attacks and 7,900 trees and 540 vehicles were destroyed.

Commenting on the numbers, a defense official confirmed that the past year saw a significant rise in so-called “price tag” attacks — a name used by far-right Israelis to justify targeting Palestinians and even IDF soldiers. The phrase marks the attacks as ostensible retaliation for terror attacks and Israeli government actions deemed hostile to the settler movement.

“The hilltop youth are less deterred than before and are feeling emboldened,” the defense official said, speaking on condition of anonymity and referring to the far-right activists who are known for establishing illegal outposts on hilltops throughout the West Bank.

He said recent attacks are more brazen than they used to be, pointing to the increasing willingness of young settlers to enter Palestinian villages in the middle of the night, rather than just chopping down olive trees planted outside of those communities.

“If this trend of escalation in price tag attacks continues, another deadly attack will occur like the one in Duma,” he added.

In July 2015, suspects hurled a firebomb at a home in the Palestinian village of Duma, burning to death three members of the Dawabsha family. Two Israeli youth were subsequently arrested for involvement in the attack, and their trial is ongoing.

The official noted that the flareup has seen not only settler violence targeting Palestinians, but attacks on Israeli security forces as well. Over 40 such incidents have been documented, the majority of which took place near the Yitzhar settlement.