Gaza City [Gaza], July 27: The Israeli military has launched an aggressive crackdown in the occupied West Bank, storming several towns and villages and detaining hundreds of Palestinians, amid escalating attacks by Jewish settlers, in a furious reaction to a shootout in a village near Nablus in which four Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers were killed.
The "wide-scale military operation" across the West Bank ordered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following the deaths of the soldiers intensified on Sunday, and settlers became bolder and more violent, marauding through villages, scrawling graffiti on buildings and attacking Palestinians.
Settlers tried to set two mosques ablaze. At one of those, the newly built Al-Rahma Mosque in the town of Qusra southeast of Nablus, settlers spray-painted slogans like "Jewish revenge" on the walls, said Abdel Azim Wadi, head of the village council in Qusra. Videos verified by Al Jazeera showed fire consuming the mosque.
The other mosque targeted in the arson attack was in the village of Kour, south of Tulkarem. Farid Jiyousi, a member of the village council, said three settlers tried to set the mosque ablaze at dawn, but worshippers put out the fire before it could reach the main area of the premises.
Reporting from Ramallah, Al Jazeera's Nour Odeh said Israeli forces raided Rafidia near Nablus.
"They were also spotted in Huwara, in the Nablus area, assaulting a paramedic and a man. There is video circulating from witnesses about that. The Palestine Red Crescent Society also reported an assault on one of its paramedics in Masafer Yatta, to the south of Hebron," she said.
"So, all across the occupied West Bank there were overnight raids." Separately, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that 30 people were arrested in the village of Tal, where the confrontation that led to the crackdown took place, as well as 14 in Ramallah, five in Jenin, eight in Hebron, three in Bethlehem and six in Tulkarem.
Wafa also reported that Israeli forces launched a large-scale raid across the city of Jenin and several towns and villages in the governorate of Jenin.
Source: Qatar Tribune
