News - Middle East: A group of Israeli settlers have vandalized a mosque and set it on fire in the northern West Bank village of Marda, media reports say. 

Local Palestinian media reports said illegal settlers entered the northern village of Marda and stormed the Bar al-Walidain Mosque overnight into Friday.

Video footage captured at the scene shows the burned mosque, with the word "revenge" and "death to Arabs" and other hateful and racist slogans had been spray-painted on its walls and floor.

Black burn marks were visible at the entrance to the Muslim holy site. The fire was put out before it could spread much further.

Local Palestinian residents said that the fire was extinguished before it could engulf the entire structure.

Nasfat al-Khufash, head of the Marda village council, also confirmed the “systematic terror attack by a group of settlers.”

"On Friday, Marda awoke to a systematic terror attack by a group of settlers who set fire to Bar al-Walidain mosque."

"These attacks by settler groups are continuous and systematic," he said.

The governor of a local district said that the attack "wouldn't have occurred without the constant protection that settlers receive from the Israeli army."

Abdallah Kamil, governor of Salfit, said that illegal settlers had previously entered the village “under the protection of the Israeli army”, and that similar acts of vandalism and graffiti had been reported in nearby areas.

Palestine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ramallah condemned the attack, calling it a “blatant act of racism” and a reflection of the “widespread incitement campaigns against our people carried out by elements of the extremist right-wing ruling government” of Israel.

The ministry appealed to the international community and the United Nations Security Council to help protect the Palestinians.

Over the past year, the UN has recorded nearly 1,500 instances of settler violence in the occupied West Bank.

The attacks by settlers often occur under the protection of Israeli soldiers.

Israel has ramped up violence against the Palestinians in the West Bank since it launched the campaign of genocide in Gaza in October 2023.

The settler violence has also caused the largest wave of forcible transfers of Palestinian communities over the past months. 

The regime forces have killed more than 800 Palestinians and abducted over 12,000 others in the West Bank ever since.

Source: Press TV