Israeli settlers set ablaze at least two mosques and vandalized them with graffiti during an attack on Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank Sunday, Palestinian officials said.
The recent bout of violence comes after four Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers were killed Friday when a crowd of Israeli settlers made an incursion around the Palestinian village of Tal, southwest of Nablus.
Villagers came out of their homes to confront the settlers, officials said. The subsequent shootout joined a growing series of clashes involving settlers in which dozens of Palestinians have been killed this year and hundreds wounded, according to figures from the U.N. and the Palestinian Authority.
Abdel Azim Wadi, head of the village council in Qusra, southeast of Nablus, said settlers had torched a newly completed mosque in his village early Sunday.
He said they sprayed slogans in Hebrew on the walls, with messages including "Jewish revenge" and the name of one of the Israelis killed near Tal.
