Security video documents West Bank vandal attack

In village near Tapuach junction, perpetrators slash car tires, spray paint Hebrew graffiti on gas station wall.

By TOVAH LAZAROFF
Hebrew graffiti reads "mutual responsibility, Esh Kodesh" 37 (photo credit: Courtesy of B'Tselem)
Hebrew graffiti reads "mutual responsibility, Esh Kodesh" 37
(photo credit: Courtesy of B'Tselem)
A gas station security camera in the West Bank Palestinian village of Kabalan picked up images of several vandals in the pre-dawn hours Wednesday.
The village is located near the Kfar Tapuach junction.
In the morning the gas station owners saw that Hebrew graffiti had been scrawled on the gas station wall overnight.
It read “mutual responsibility, Esh Kodesh,” in reference to an outpost, which is battling neighboring Palestinians for control of farm land.
The five-minute video was distributed to the media by B’Tselem, which assumes that the men in the video are Israeli.
B’Tselem spokeswoman Sarit Michaeli said, “the important thing about the video is that it links the tire slashing with the graffiti.”
The black and white video shows at least two hooded figures, which appear to be male, moving around the car, and kneeling by its tires. They also moved around a nearby truck.
Michaeli said that in the morning, the gas station owners saw that the car’s tires were slashed.
At one point in the video, one or two of the hooded figures walk in the direction of the gas station wall, where the graffiti was later found.
But the wall itself is out of the camera’s eye.