HOURS after Jewish extremist settlers burned alive Ali Dawabsha, an 18-month-old Palestinian, some in the poor West Bank village of Duma, where some Arabs make a living by working on nearby Israeli settlements, took refuge in their religion.
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According to the military, the suspects entered the village of Duma, near the city of Nablus, where they set the homes ablaze and scrawled graffiti, including “Long live the Messiah” and “price tag”.
No one has been arrested, but the arson looks to be a “price tag” attack, the name given to a reprisal campaign waged by extremist Jewish settlers.
Condemning the attack, the Israeli army said they are trying to identify and locate suspects.
Palestinian sources said the injured included the toddler’s mother Riham, 26, and father, Saad, as well as his four-year-old brother Ahmed. Up to 75 percent of their bodies suffered burns, according to medics in Nablus’ Rafidia hospital.
He called the attack an act of “reprehensible terrorism” and made a rare condolence call to the Palestinian Authority’s chairman, Mahmoud Abbas.
Israel razed Wednesday two buildings in the settlement of Beit El, after the Supreme Court ordered its destruction because they were built on private Palestinian land.
Ibrahim Dawabsheh, a neighbor, told the Reuters news agency that he had seen two masked men outside the house after he heard shouts for help and rushed to the scene.
The attack took place amid heightened tensions in the West Bank; Hamas had called for a “day of rage” and protests Friday for the recent killings of three Palestinians.
“This ugly crime could have been avoided if the Israeli government had not ignored the rights of the Palestinian people and turned its back on peace”, government spokesman Mohamed Momani said. Also, Israeli police limited entrance to Friday prayers at a Jerusalem mosque to men over 50, with no restrictions on women.
Duma residents blamed the incident on Israeli refusal to confront settler violence. Mr Netanyahu’s declarations have failed to convince Saeb Erekat, deputy chief of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, who said “this barbarous attack can not be dissociated from a government that represents a coalition for colonisation and apartheid”.
Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Lerner said an investigation was underway and called the attack “nothing short of a barbaric act of terrorism”.
” ‘This is a direct effect of decades of impunity given by the Israeli government to settler terrorism, ‘ it said”. Gilad Erdan, Israel’s minister for internal security, invoked the lessons of World War II by saying that “a people whose children were burned in the Holocaust must do some deep soul searching when it produces people who burn others humans”.
Friday’s fire was at least the fourth “price tag” fire this year, the group said, a list that included the torching of two Palestinian vehicles, the vandalizing and burning of a Greek Orthodox Seminary, and a mosque that was set on fire and vandalized.
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Also on Thursday, Israeli prosecutors charged a third Jewish suspect in connection with an arson attack last month at the Church of Multiplication in the Galilee. “We will deflect this further attempt to impose us with dictates, just as we deflected the Palestinian (resolution) at the united nations Security Council”.
