NABLUS: Palestinian officials reported on Friday that Israeli settlers had set fire to a mosque in the occupied West Bank, an act Israeli police said was under investigation.
According to Abdallah Kamil, the governor of Salfit, the attack targeted the Bir Al-Walidain mosque in the village of Marda.
“A group of settlers carried out an attack early this morning by setting fire to the mosque,” Kamil said in a statement.
In addition to the arson, the settlers vandalized the mosque’s walls with “racist graffiti” in Hebrew, he said.
Photographs shared on social media showed slogans spray-painted in black including “Death to Arabs.”
Villagers of Marda confirmed the details, with one resident telling AFP: “They set fire to the entrance of the mosque and wrote Hebrew slogans on its walls.”
Another resident said the fire was extinguished before it could engulf the entire structure.
An AFP photographer at the scene saw villagers gathering at the mosque to assess the extent of the damage.
Governor Kamil alleged that settlers had previously entered the village “under the protection of the Israeli army,” and that similar acts of vandalism and graffiti had been reported in nearby areas.
The Palestinian foreign ministry in Ramallah condemned the incident, calling it a “blatant act of racism” and a reflection of the ” widespread incitement campaigns against our people carried out by elements of the extremist right-wing ruling government” of Israel.
Israeli police and the domestic Shin Bet security agency described the incident as a matter of “great severity.”
They said they would “act decisively to ensure accountability for those responsible,” adding an investigation was underway, with authorities gathering testimony and evidence from the scene.
Violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank has intensified since the war in Gaza began on October 7 last year following Hamas’s attack on Israel.
Since the start of the war, at least 803 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces or settlers, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
In the same period, Palestinian attacks have claimed the lives of at least 24 Israelis in the West Bank, based on Israeli official data.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

GENEVA: The UN human rights office will send a small team of human rights officers to Syria next week for the first time in years following the overthrow of President Bashar Assad, UN spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan told a press briefing on Friday.
As part of the takeover, rebels have flung open prisons and government offices and raising fresh hopes for accountability for crimes committed during Syria’s more than 13-year civil war.
Under Assad, the UN human rights team has not been allowed in Syria for years, Al-Kheetan said, and has been monitoring abuses remotely.
He said that the team would support human rights issues and help ensure that any power transition is “inclusive and within the framework of international law.” “It is important for us to start establishing a presence,” he said. A UN investigative body also hopes to travel to Syria to secure evidence that could implicate top officials of the former government.

Earlier on Friday, the head of the UN migration agency warned that large-scale returns of refugees to Syria could overwhelm the country and even stoke conflict at a fragile moment with the fall of Assad regime.
The UN refugee agency has estimated that 1 million people will return to Syria in the first six months of 2025. Some European countries have already frozen asylum applications for Syrians.
“We believe that millions of people returning would create conflict within an already fragile society,” Amy Pope, director-general of the International Organization for Migration, told a Geneva press briefing after a trip to Syria.
“We are not promoting large-scale returns. The communities, frankly, are just not ready to absorb the people who are displaced,” she said, calling for support from donors to help stabilize and rebuild the country.
Pope said she was urging governments to “slow down on any plans to sent people back.”
She said some communities could yet flee because of uncertainties about life under the new authorities, led by the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham group which once had ties to Al-Qaeda.
“We heard from communities, for example, the Christian community, who hasn’t yet left, but are very much worried about the next several months and want to make sure that they don’t become the targets of attack,” Pope said.
Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war and ending his family’s decades-long rule.
The United States, other Western powers and many Syrians welcomed Assad’s fall, but it is not clear whether HTS will impose strict Islamic rule or show flexibility.
There is widespread apprehension among Syrians that the new administration will gravitate toward hard-line religious rule, marginalizing minority communities and excluding women from public life.