Israeli settlers set fire to an agricultural tractor and sprayed racist, anti-Arab graffiti “demanding to take revenge on Burin village,” south of Nablus in the northern occupied West Bank on Thursday night.
Locals from Burin told Ma’an News that a group of Israeli settlers raided the village, set fire to an agricultural tractor owned by local resident Abd al-Athem Idris, and sprayed racist slogans “against Arabs” onto cement blocks in the area.
Israeli police said in statement that they were informed of the incident by Palestinian officials, and were opening an investigation.
Many Palestinian activists and rights groups have accused Israel of fostering a “culture of impunity” for Israeli settlers and soldiers committing violent acts against Palestinians.
In March, Israeli NGO Yesh Din revealed that Israeli authorities served indictments in only 8.2 percent of cases of Israeli settlers committing anti-Palestinian crimes in the occupied West Bank in the past three years.
Between 500,000 and 600,000 Israelis live in Jewish-only settlements across occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank in violation of international law, with recent announcements of settlement expansion provoking condemnation from the international community.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), there were a total of 107 reported settler attacks against Palestinians and their properties in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem in 2016. OCHA has recorded 46 such attacks since the beginning of the year.
