Jewish extremists vandalized six cars in the Palestinian village of Kusra around
1:30 a.m. Thursday, according to the B’Tselem NGO.
Four of the vehicles
were torched and two had their windows broken, said B’Tselem, which provided
photographs of two of the vehicles.
The IDF could not confirm the “price
tag” attack because its forces could not safely enter the village to investigate
the matter.
But Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad condemned both
the “price tag” attack and the IDF demolition of electricity poles in the same
village on Wednesday.
A statement by his office said, that the “acts of
sabotage by the occupation forces” as the “continuation of settler terrorism
against our people” showed that Israel was deliberately targeting “the basic
elements of the life of our people.”
Early Thursday morning, a number of
Palestinians who saw the Jewish extremists vandalize the cars, alerted the
village. A mosque used its microphone system to call out a warning that
extremists, believed to be settlers, were in the village. The vandals
fled.
When Israeli security forces arrived an hour later, villagers
attacked them with stones, according to the IDF.
Clashes broke out, and
security forces used riot dispersal means, to clear the area.
Security
forces abandoned the area, attempting to return later in the morning, only to be
met with more stone throwing. They again used riot dispersal means. Both times
the IDF had to leave the village.
This is the second time in two days
that clashes have broken out between security forces and Palestinians in Kusra.
Security forces arrived to help an IDF team take down some 10 or 12 electricity
poles on Wednesday that, according to the IDF, had been illegally raised.