Jewish Settlers Desecrate Mosque
13/02/2006| IslamWeb
Jewish settlers daubed graffiti insulting the Prophet Mohammad (
) on the wall of a mosque in a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank, an Israeli military source and local residents said on Sunday.
After news of the incident, Palestinians threw stones at Israeli cars driving to nearby Jewish settlements, slightly hurting one woman and sparking clashes with Israeli soldiers who fired tear gas canisters and shot bullets into the air.
Two Palestinians were wounded in the violence, medics said.
Protests swept through the Palestinian territories during the past week over the publication in European newspapers of satirical cartoons depicting the Prophet.
"During the night, a group of settlers came to a mosque in the village of Nabi Ilyas and spray painted the graffiti," the military source said.
Soldiers later removed the graffiti from the walls of the mosque. A spokesman for the Israeli police in the West Bank said an investigation was underway.
Palestinian villagers said the slogan, written in red letters in Hebrew, denigrated the Prophet Mohammad and that six edge star was also daubed on the Muslim holy place.
"I open the mosque every day for dawn prayers. Today, when I went to open it, I saw a person wearing a skullcap spray painting at the wall," Othman Zimmari, 67, told Reuters.
"When he saw me, he ran towards a white car with yellow (Israeli) licence plates. I could not tell if there were other people with the car. I rushed inside the mosque and locked the door because I was afraid."
PHOTO CAPTION
) graffiti from the wall of a mosque in the northern West Bank village of Nabi Alyas. (AFP)