Settlers accused of burning, vandalizing West Bank mosque in overnight attack

A group of settlers attacked a West Bank town overnight, setting a mosque on fire and spraying graffiti around the site, Palestinian witnesses said. Police said they had opened an investigation.

A statement from police said officers searched for perpetrators and a crime forensics team collected evidence from the scene in Tuwani, in the South Hebron Hills.

A car was torched and damage was caused to a “house of prayer” along with graffiti, police said.

“An investigation into the cause of the incident… is ongoing,” the police statement read, without directly noting the arson suspicions.

There were no reports of injuries as a result of the apparent settler attack.

Pictures from the scene show a Star of David and the words “Havat Gilad” painted on a wall of the mosque, referring to a northern West Bank settlement where several homes caught fire Saturday. Other photos showed graffiti reading, “I am under house arrest.”

More than two dozen settlers, some masked, attacked the Al-Taqwa mosque in the village overnight and set it on fire, Mohammed Rabie, head of the village council, told AFP.

The settlers also set fire to two houses and a dairy factory, he said.

Rabie said the settlers fled after villagers emerged from their homes, adding that local volunteers managed to extinguish the flames before they spread further. He also said the dairy factory, run by women from the Masafer Yatta community, suffered extensive damage.

“We thank God that this attack did not turn into a tragedy with loss of life,” he said.

“The settlers’ attack took place in full view of the Israeli army,” Palestinian activist Osama Makhamra told AFP, noting that an Israeli military watchtower stands close to the mosque that was set ablaze.

Rabie, however, said Israeli army, police and fire service personnel arrived in the village about half an hour after the attack and inspected the damage to the mosque and other property.

The Palestinian religious affairs ministry condemned the attack.

In a statement, the ministry described the arson as “a full-fledged terrorist act,” accusing Israel’s “extremist occupation government” of encouraging settler violence in an effort to displace Palestinians from the area and turn the conflict into “a religious war.”

Israeli colonists set fire to two Palestinian homes and a mosque in the village of Al-Tuwani in the Masafer Yatta area, south of Hebron, overnight, causing extensive damage. pic.twitter.com/2X17FClFUE

— Government Communication Center (@pal_gcc_en) July 19, 2026

In its statement, police also noted that arson investigators were continuing to look into a wildfire that engulfed homes in Havat Gilad, west of Nablus, on Saturday.

Several houses in the settlement caught fire and residents were evacuated from the area. There were no reports of casualties.

An initial probe had indicated that the blaze was started by a lit cigarette flicked out of the window of a car.

Police said authorities were continuing to investigate “to reach the truth and locate those involved.”

Violence in the West Bank has soared since the Hamas attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war in October 2023.

More than 1,100 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces or settlers since the war started, according to the PA health ministry. The IDF says the vast majority of them were gunmen killed in exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops or terrorists carrying out attacks.

During the same period, 66 civilians and Israeli security personnel have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another eight members of the security forces were killed in clashes during raids in Palestinian cities in the West Bank.

The same period has also seen a major surge in attacks by settler extremists on Palestinians and their property across the West Bank. The IDF recorded 867 incidents of nationalistic crime and settler violence in 2025. The total for 2024 was 682 incidents.