News / Palestine

Israeli settlers vandalize more than 160 Palestinian vehicles in East Jerusalem al-Quds

Monday, 09 December 2019 4:43 PM [ Last Update: Monday, 09 December 2019 5:13 PM ]

A Palestinian checks a car as vehicles with their tires slashed are pictured in the neighborhood of Shuafaat, next to the Israeli settlement of Ramat Shlomo, occupied East Jerusalem al-Quds, December 9, 2019. (Photo by AFP)

Israeli settlers have vandalized more than 160 Palestinian vehicles in the occupied East Jerusalem al-Quds, slashing the tires of parked cars and spraying racist graffiti on nearby walls.

Locals said on Monday a group of settlers had raided the Shuafaat neighborhood overnight.

Maysa Abu Khdair, a resident whose car was damaged and whose surveillance cameras caught the scene, blamed extremist settlers for the latest incident of vandalism.

“Three masked settlers sneaked into the neighborhood early and damaged the tires of cars on the main street.”

The Palestine Information Center reported that the settlers are believed to be from the illegal settlement of Ramat Shlomo, located in the mainly Palestinian eastern sector of Jerusalem al-Quds.

The photo shows the aftermath of a settler raid in the Palestinian neighborhood of Shuafaat in East Jerusalem al-Quds on December 9, 2019. (By the Palestine Information Center)

One of the damaged vehicles belongs to Ra'ad Abu Khdeir, brother of Muhammad Abu Khdeir, a Palestinian teenager who was kidnapped and burned alive by three settlers in 2014.

Israeli police said an investigation had been opened into the incident, and that officers were searching for the perpetrators.

The episode bore the hallmark of a ‘price tag’ attack, a euphemism for hate crimes that generally target Palestinian property across the occupied land.

Back on October 12 last year, Aisha Muhammad Talal al-Rabi, 47, a mother of eight children, was killed and her husband suffered injuries after Israeli settlers hurled rocks at their vehicle near the Zaatara checkpoint in Nablus.

Also on August 19 of that year, a Palestinian man and his three children suffered injuries when a group of settlers violently pelted their car with stones in the northern part of the West Bank.

Price tag attacks are acts of vandalism and violence carried out by Israeli settlers against Palestinians and their property as well as Islamic holy sites.

Israeli settlers vandalize Palestinian property in West Bank

A group of Israeli settlers vandalizes Palestinian-owned property in the occupied West Bank.

According to human rights groups, incidents of sabotage and violence by extremist Jewish settlers against Palestinians and their property are a daily occurrence throughout the West Bank.