The vandalism of a mosque near the city of Nablus overnight early Friday morning was a hate crime, authorities suspect.
A large contingent of police and military forces were scrambled to the Saada Mosque in the southern part of the village of Aqraba, near Nablus, when the vandalism was discovered on Friday. The door of the mosque was set on fire, and an outer wall was defaced with the word "Nekama" (revenge) in Hebrew.
The Tag Meir Forum, a group founded to fight the phenomenon of hate crimes against Muslim and Christians by Jewish extremists, said in response to Friday's incident that it "condemns and deplores the attempt to set fire to the mosque in Aqraba."
Members of Tag Meir say that since December 2009, 50 mosques, churches, and monasteries inside the Green Line and in Judea and Samaria have been set on fire or otherwise vandalized by Jewish extremists.
"Radical right-wing activists are trying, via terrorist actions that include setting occupied homes, houses of worship, and cars on fire; uprooting olive trees; and graffiti, to frighten the Palestinian population and make their lives in the Land of Israel insufferable," they said.
