Israeli settlers’ attacks on mosques on the rise

Israeli settlers’ attacks on mosques on the rise

NABLUS,  The international Tadamun foundation for human rights has warned that the IOF troops and the Israeli settlers’ attacks on Palestinian mosques have increased rapidly this year, indicating a hidden Israeli scheme against Muslim holy shrines in occupied Palestine.

Ahmad Al-Bitwai, a researcher at the foundation, explained that his group recorded 18 Israeli attacks against the Aqsa Mosque and other local mosques in occupied Palestine, including writing malicious and Nazi-like phrases on walls of those mosques.

According to Bitawi, the Israeli occupation authorities decided to annex the Ibrahimi Mosques in Al-Khalil city and Bilal Mosque in Bethlehem city and considered them as part of the Jewish heritage.

He also noted that the Israeli settlers attacked and burned a number of mosques in the West Bank cities of Nablus and Salfeet, including the mosque of Salman Al-Farsi in Bourin town, and the central mosque in Al-Libban village causing huge damage to each of them.

A few days ago, Israeli settlers attacked the Anbeyya mosque in Beit Fajjar village, south of Bethlehem, and burned it and tore copies of the holy Quran inside it.

Mosques in the 1948-occupied Palestinian cities of Haifa and Akka were also assaulted by Israeli settlers who, after they finished their crime, daubed the walls of  those mosques with graffiti calling for declaring war on the Arabs and urging to kick them out of Palestine, Bitawi underscored.

Bitawi urged the international community and human rights organizations to provide full protection for places of worship in occupied Palestine, to bridle the Israeli attacks on them, and to pressure the Israeli occupation authorities to leave the Muslims practice their religion freely.