Mayor says arsonist burn mosque in Palestinian village in West Bank, damage holy books

Mayor: Arsonist torch mosque in West Bank village

RAMALLAH, West Bank — The mayor of a Palestinian village in the West Bank says arsonists have torched a local mosque.

Mayor Ali Satawa says he believes hardline Jews from a nearby Israeli settlement are responsible because arsonists scrawled the word “revenge” in Hebrew on the mosque wall in Beit Fajjar.

The fire charred a dozen Muslim holy books, the Quran, and blackened parts of the mosque.

A tiny minority of hardline Jews often damage Palestinian property in the West Bank, either to frighten residents or to protest Israeli government policies.

Two other West Bank mosques have been torched since December. In one incident, police detained a group of extremist Jews.

Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said authorities were investigating Monday’s incident.