Illegal Israeli settlers on Thursday set fire to the entrance of a mosque in the village of Duma, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, and spray-painted Hebrew slogans on its walls, according to Palestinian sources.
Anti-settlement activist Suleiman Dawabsheh told Anadolu that a group of Israeli settlers infiltrated the village before dawn and set fire to the mosque.
Residents quickly extinguished the flames with the help of crews from the Palestinian Civil Defence before it had a chance to spread inside the building, he added.
Dawabsheh said the blaze damaged the mosque’s entrance, while smoke spread inside the prayer hall, causing damage to interior facades and prayer carpets.
He added that settlers wrote Hebrew slogans on the mosque’s exterior walls.
The Palestinian Awqaf and Religious Affairs Ministry decried what it described as a growing number of attempts to burn mosques in the occupied West Bank during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
In a statement, the ministry said the attack on the mosque was “an attempt to desecrate Islamic holy sites during Ramadan.”
Since Israel began its genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023, attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian towns and villages in the occupied West Bank have intensified. According to official Palestinian data, these attacks have killed 1,125 Palestinians, injured about 11,700 more, and led to the arrest of roughly 22,000 people.
