Israeli Settlers Torch Two West Bank Mosques North of Ramallah, Palestinian Officials Say

Israeli settlers set fire to mosques in two West Bank villages north of Ramallah on Wednesday, with AFP journalists describing scorched walls and Hebrew graffiti at one site.

“Israeli occupiers set fire early Wednesday to a women's prayer hall in a mosque in Jiljilya village in the central occupied West Bank and spray-painted Hebrew slogans on its walls”

A News

Osama Abdullah, head of the village council in Jiljiliya north of Ramallah, told AFP that “settlers set fire to the ablution room, caused damage to the village’s main mosque, and scrawled hostile slogans on the outer walls”.

A News

Abdullah said settlers arrived to burn the mosque between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. but found its door locked, so they set fire to a lower-floor room dedicated to ablutions, which Palestinian civil defence crews and young men from the village and neighbouring areas extinguished.

In the neighbouring village of Mazari an-Nubani, Saad Dagher told AFP that settlers came to torch another mosque overnight and attacked one of the village’s three mosques with Molotov cocktails around 3 a.m. before residents put out the fire.

The incident came during a period of increased attacks against Palestinian communities by settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank since the start of the Gaza war in 2023, according to The Hindu’s account of the context.

The Palestinian Ministry of Awqaf and Religious Affairs condemned the attacks, describing them as a serious violation targeting places of worship and breaching international laws protecting religious sites.

The ministry held Israeli occupation authorities fully responsible and urged the international community and human rights organizations to act to protect places of worship and hold perpetrators accountable, framing the incidents as a dangerous escalation and provocation.

Al Jazeera

In Jiljiliya, AFP journalists reported the ceiling, walls and floors were blackened by smoke and flames, and graffiti in Hebrew included phrases reading “vengeance” and “hi from the Hilltop Youth”.

The Hilltop Youth were described as a group of Israelis in the West Bank who are regularly accused of violence towards Palestinians they seek to evict from areas they want to take over, while Israel’s military confirmed the arson and graffiti but did not identify the perpetrators.

Kuwait Times also reported that the attacks coincided with the continuation of the Israeli occupation’s aggression on the Gaza Strip, which it said resulted in tens of thousands of casualties and extensive destruction of infrastructure and civilian facilities.

The TRT World report said illegal Israeli settlers set fire to parts of two mosques in Jiljilya and Mazra’a al-Nubani north of Ramallah and sprayed Hebrew slogans on their walls, with local sources telling Anadolu that the women’s prayer hall in Jiljilya was burned.

TRT World also linked the West Bank violence to the Gaza war, saying attacks by the Israeli army and illegal settlers against Palestinians and their property have continued since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023.

That same TRT World account cited official Palestinian figures that since October 8, 2023, the Israeli escalation in the West Bank has killed 1,169 Palestinians and injured 12,666 others, while around 23,000 have been arrested and 33,000 displaced.

In parallel, a separate Anadolu-sourced account in عربي21 described settlers burning a mosque in Jaljilia in the Ramallah District and scrawling anti-Palestinian slogans, while also describing synchronized raids and clashes across multiple West Bank areas.

While the immediate incidents centered on mosques north of Ramallah, the sources placed them within a broader pattern of arson and attacks on places of worship alongside ongoing military operations and incursions in the West Bank.