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The police in the northern Israeli coastal city Haifa on Friday said that suspected Jewish extremists had vandalized a Muslim grave in a cemetery in the city, the latest in a string of racist attacks in Israel.
In a statement, police spokeswoman Luba Samri said that “Graffiti was found sprawled on and around a grave in the Al-Qassam cemetery in Nesher”, north of Haifa. The graffiti, spray painted in red, featured a Jewish star of David, the words “price tag” and the names of Israel’s chief peace negotiator in the peace talks with Palestine Tzipi Livni and the US Secretary of State John Kerry, Samri added.
On Tuesday, Vandals hit a mosque in in the small Arab town Fureidis near Haifa. President Shimon Peres apologised to the mayor of the town, and said that the Israeli government “will do its utmost to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice”. Vandals also hit the Tabgha church, where Christians believe Jesus Christ performed the miracle of the loaves and fish, near the sea shore of Galilee. Church officials said that a group of religious teenage Jews had attacked the clergy and damaged the crosses in the church.
In 2013, the State Department’s Reports on Terrorism cited UN figures of some “399 attacks by extremist Israeli settlers that resulted in Palestinian injuries or property damage”. The report said that attacks by “extremist Israeli settlers against Palestinian residents, property, and places of worship in the West Bank continued and were largely unprosecuted”.
The attacks in Israel thought to be carried out by suspected Jewish extremists mostly in their teens, initially targeted Palestinians and their possessions, but have since grown and targeted Christian sites and anyone who is opposed to Jewish settlements.
Israel’s Islamic Movement condemned Friday’s vandalism, which happened in a cemetery named after Muslim leader Ezzedine al-Qassam, who had led fighting against the French and the British in mandate Palestine, and died in a battle in 1935. “This crime adds to a series of planned and thought-out terrorist acts” it said, suggesting that the vandals may have intended to target Qassam’s grave.