Police probing week’s third apparent hate crime targeting Palestinian village

Police were investigating an apparent hate crime attack in the central West Bank Palestinian village of al-Mughayyir, where residents woke up Monday morning to find the tires of eight cars slashed and Hebrew slogans, including one that said “God is king,” spray-painted on the walls of buildings nearby.

The town’s mayor told Palestinian media that in addition to the property damage, the Israelis who perpetrated the crime had also attacked a group of dairy farmers and sheepherds on their way out of the village.

A police spokewoman said she was unaware of the assault claims, but would look into them.

Monday’s attack was the third apparent hate crime targeting a West Bank Palestinian village in less than a week.

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On Saturday, residents of the northern West Bank village of Immatin accused settlers from the nearby outpost of Havat Gilad of torching 150 dunams (37 acres) of their land. When the Palestinians arrived at the scene to extinguish the fire, they said, armed Israelis were waiting for them and would not let them go by to put out the blaze.

For their part, residents of the northern West Bank settlement of Yitzhar claimed that Palestinians from nearby Burin had sparked fires in fields adjacent to the Israeli hilltop community the day before.

Police were unaware of either of the two alleged arson attacks.

And last Friday, police opened a probe into a pair of homes that were ransacked in the central West Bank village of Jalud.

Palestinian locals accused settlers of carrying out the attack, claiming to have seen a group of Israelis retreat to the outpost of Esh Kodesh shortly after they arrived at the scene to discover the damages.

One of the targeted homes had been torched and another was torn apart with the flooring pulled off, windows cracked and a bathroom looted.

Police have opened probes into dozens of hate crime attacks believed to have been perpetrated by Israeli settlers in recent months. While a number of arrests have been made, the only suspects that had been behind bars for the crimes were released last week without any charges filed.