Religious decrees and extremist settlers are all it takes to continue torching mosques in the West Bank; as what happened to the entrance of Sheikh Sa’ada mosque in the town of Aqraba southeast of Nablus at dawn on Friday 13 April 2018.
Jewish settlers wrote racist slogans as part of a campaign called ‘price tag’. They poured flammable materials and sat them on fire; the mosque door was burnt and the entrance was damaged.
Intentional attacks
The mayor of Akraba village Ghaleb Miyada spoke to the PIC reporter saying: “The worshipers were surprised when they went to pray at dawn on Friday after seeing the burnt entrance of the mosque. Recordings of cameras revealed that Jewish settlers poured inflammable materials at the entrance of the mosque and then sat it on fire which started fire at the entrance and parts of the mosque.”
He added that the town of Aqraba had been subjected to continuous settler attacks and the confiscation of land in favor of settlement expansion.
According to human rights centers and the testimonies of locals the tools used to torch the mosque are similar to the tools used to torch other mosques which includes pouring oil and starting fire then writing price tag in Hebrew on the front entrance of mosques then fleeing. Usually this takes place hours before dawn similar to what happened to other mosques in the West Bank.
Ahmed Bashir a resident of Aqraba told the PIC reporter that settlers took advantage of several factors in torching mosques. Some of these mosques are near bypass roads used by settlers which facilitates their escape after carrying out their crime.
Not the only mosque
Palestinian statistics indicate that the attempt to torch the mosque of Akraba was one of the attempts to burn down several mosques in the West Bank and that some of these mosques were burnt completely while settlers failed to set other mosques on fire following the intervention of locals.
“The policy of torching mosques in the occupied West Bank has become part of the scenes of ethnic cleansing as it turned to be a favorite hobby for settlers due to the absence of any deterrence” said researcher Khaled Maali.
He added: “It is no strange for them to torch mosques churches and other places of worship. The massacre at the Ibrahimi Mosque the arson attack on Al-Aqsa Mosque the bombing of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher after some Palestinian fighters took shelter there years ago during the Israeli aggression against the city of Bethlehem and the burning of Dawabshe family and Palestinian child Mohammed Abu Daheir are clear examples in this regard.”
He pointed out that heavenly religions prohibit attacks on places of worship and call for keeping them away from conflicts and charged that the burning of the entrance of the mosque of Aqraba and other mosques is encouraged by extremist decrees issued by Jewish rabbis and distorted texts of the Torah which permit “the burning and looting of the lands of non-Jews”.
