Nearly 53 mosques and churches in the occupied Palestinian territories have been vandalized by unknown perpetrators who are believed to be extremist settlers since 2009 according to Israeli data.
The latest of these attacks was on Wednesday and it targeted St. Stephanos Church in Beit Jamal Monastery near Beit Shemesh for the third time in five years Haaretz newspaper reported.
The paper pointed out that many items were broken in the attack including the windows some furniture and a statue of the Virgin Mary.
In 2013 a firebomb was thrown at the church and hateful slogans were written on the walls and in 2016 gravestones were vandalized in the monastery’s cemetery. No suspects were arrested in the two incidents and no indictments were filed.
Haaretz said that between 2009 and July 2017 over 53 churches and mosques in the West Bank and the 1948 occupied Palestinian territories were vandalized based on data given by Israel’s Ministry of Public Security.
The data show that seven people whom identities and motives remained unknown were convicted while only nine indictments were filed. Around 45 cases were closed and it is claimed that investigations in the other cases are still ongoing.
The Ministry did not present further details about the perpetrators and whether indictments were filed in each given case. However it is likely that some extremist Jewish groups are behind these racist attacks.
According to the Hebrew newspaper nine Christian and Islamic holy sites were vandalized in 2014 and 2015. In 2016 three similar attacks were recorded but there were four in the first half of 2017.
