'Price Tag' suspects attack Jordan Valley villages

Attackers reportedly torch one vehicle, damage seven others; graffiti found calling for vengeance of Evyatar Borovsky's murder.

By BEN HARTMAN
Tag Mehir Jordan Valley 370 (photo credit: Courtesy Israel Police)
Tag Mehir Jordan Valley 370
(photo credit: Courtesy Israel Police)
A series of “price-tag” attacks were carried out on Wednesday morning, targeting Palestinian property in the Jordan Valley and east Jerusalem.
In the Palestinian village of Zubeidat, one vehicle was set ablaze and three more were damaged in an attempt to set them alight late Tuesday night, Judea and Samaria police said. At the scene the words “30 for Evyatar” were found spray-painted on a wall, an apparent reference to the 30-day anniversary of the murder of Evyatar Borovsky, a settler stabbed to death at the Tapuah junction in the West Bank.
Also in the Jordan Valley, unknown perpetrators attempted to torch four cars in the village of Marj Najah. Minor damage was caused to the cars, police said, adding that graffiti reading “Regards from Evyatar may God avenge his blood” was found written next to the scene.
Meanwhile, in east Jerusalem, three vehicles were found with their tires punctured at the entrance to the Shuafat Palestinian refugee camp, Wednesday morning. Graffiti similar to that in the Jordan Valley was found at the scene, including the words “price tag” and “Evyatar” painted on two of the vehicles.
The investigations into the incidents have been handed over to the special anti-nationalist crimes task force of the Israel Police, while the Judea and Samaria branch of the YAMAR investigative unit will probe the incidents in the Jordan Valley.
On Monday, YAMAR Negev and the anti-price-tag task force arrested six minors – five of them aged 15 years and one aged 12 – accused of a series of property and drug crimes and of throwing rocks at Palestinian cars. The five were taken to court and released on house arrest on Tuesday.
Also Tuesday, the price-tag unit and officers from the Judea and Samaria branch of the “YASSAM” special patrol unit arrested five people, two of them minors, as they were allegedly fleeing the scene after setting a Palestinian field on fire near the Zis junction in the West Bank.
Earlier in May, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch and Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein held a meeting to discuss price-tag incidents and violence and harassment by Israeli Jews against Arabs, along with representatives from the IDF, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and the State Attorney’s Office.
In a statement issued by Livni and Aharonovitch’s offices, the ministries said Aharonovitch, Livni and Weinstein “see eye to eye on the need for more serious steps to be taken [against perpetrators] of such attacks.”
They added that they “see the severity of price-tag attacks seeping into Israel and the danger inherent in damaging relations with Arab-Israelis.”
Harsher measures were discussed at the meeting, including legally defining price-tag attacks as acts of terror.
Weinstein has been opposed to such a legal definition in the past, but according to sources, he is weighing shifting that opinion, due to the failure by the current legal deterrents to halt these crimes.