Police investigating apparent hate crime in Palestinian village

Police on Wednesday opened an investigation into an apparent hate crime targeting the central West Bank Palestinian village of Ein Yabrud.

Residents found the tires slashed on vehicles in the village and the Hebrew word for “revenge” and a red Star of David graffitied in the suspected “price tag” hate crime.

B’tselem, an Israeli human rights group, said 25 vehicles were damaged in the attack.

So-called price tag attacks, usually limited to arson and graffiti but sometimes including physical assaults and even murder, have been carried out by Jewish extremists against non-Jews and IDF targets in the wake of Palestinian terror attacks or Israeli government decisions the extremists opposed.

Last Wednesday police opened an investigation into an apparent hate crime targeting the central West Bank Palestinian village of Deir Jarir. Residents found dozens of grapevines and fruit trees uprooted and several Hebrew phrases daubed on adjacent stones along with a red Star of David in the village north of Ramallah, including “Regards from Kfar Etzion,” referring to a settlement targeted by vandalism last month, and “price tag.”

Earlier last week police opened a probe into a suspected hate crime targeting a Palestinian section of the predominantly Jewish East Jerusalem neighborhood of Pisgat Ze’ev, where 12 vehicles had been vandalized with tires slashed and Hebrew phrases painted.

In December, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs released a report that showed a 69 percent increase in settler attacks on Palestinians in 2018 compared to 2017.