Ramallah - Palestinians accused Jewish settlers of setting fire to a mosque in the occupied West Bank on Monday, an incident that coincided with US efforts to save peace talks stalled by a dispute over settlement building.
Fifteen Qur'an and the mosque's carpet were burned, said Ali Thawabti, a municipal council official in the village of Beit Fajjar. It was the fourth time since December that a West Bank mosque had been vandalised in an attack blamed on settlers.
“When people saw the blaze, they rushed to extinguish the the fire,” Thawabti said. “Settlers got into their white Peugeot and sped away.”
The Israeli military, which has been in control of the West Bank since 1967, said it was investigating the attack in Beit Fajjar, near the town of Bethlehem.
“This is very serious incident which we view with utmost gravity and we intend to find those responsible as quickly as possible,” military spokeswoman Lieutenant Colonel Avital Liebowitz told Reuters.
Last May, Palestinians accused settlers of setting a fire in a mosque in another West Bank village, Libban al-Sharqia, near the town of Nablus, a blaze that Israeli authorities said was likely caused by an electrical fault during building work.
In April, Jewish settlers were accused of spraying graffiti on the walls of a mosque in Hawara, and in December, carpets and Qur'an were torched in Yasuf. No charges have been brought in those incidents.
The settlers number close to half a million in the West Bank and areas of Jerusalem that Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East war.
The Palestinian leadership said on Saturday peace talks with Israel, which got under way on September 2, would not resume until it completely halted settlement construction.
A 10-month Israeli moratorium on housing starts in West Bank settlements expired a week ago and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has resisted US and international pressure to extend the measure.
Organisations which monitor human rights in the West Bank say attacks by settlers on Palestinians and their property tend to increase when settlers perceive any risk to the settlements. - Reuters