Palestinians near the Palestinian West Bank town of Bethlehem said a mosque in the village of Jab'awas was set on fire by Jewish settlers before dawn on Wednesday, arousing suspicions that the vandalism was carried out by right wins extremists in an act of "price tag." Nationalist graffiti were sprayed on the mosque's walls. "Price tag" is a euphemism for hate attacks by Jewish extremists.
In March, vandals slashed the tires of more than 40 cars in Palestinian East Jerusalem, spraying a slogan reading: "Gentiles in the land are enemies."
In April vandals left anti-Muslim graffiti on a mosque in northern Israel.
"Unidentified people drew a Star of David and wrote 'close the mosques and open yeshivas' [Jewish seminaries] on the outer wall" of the mosque in Fureidis, police spokesperson Micky Rosenfeld told AFP.
"The tires of several cars parked nearby were slashed," he said, adding that "crimes committed for nationalist motives are extremely serious."
Later that month, assailants nearby city of Umm al-Faham left graffiti on a mosque and damaged its door.
Suspected Jewish extremists slashed the tires of some 40 cars in an Arab village in northern Israel, as well and a Roman Catholic convent west of Jerusalem was vandalized by attackers who sprayed offensive graffiti on the walls and damaged five nearby cars.
In May unknown vandals scrawled nationalist graffiti on a Muslim cemetery near Nesher in northern Israel, a day after a woman said she was assaulted with pepper spray in a suspected racial attack.
The graffiti at the Alkassam cemetery read "Price tag Tzipi Livni," referring to the former justice minister, who had criticized such attacks.
Another slogan read: "thanks for Memorial Day," while another referenced US Secretary of State John Kerry.
Also on May vandals sprayed anti-Christian graffiti on a Jerusalem church ahead of a visit by Pope Francis in Israel.
"Price tag…King David for the Jews…Jesus is garbage" was spray-painted in Hebrew on the wall of St George's, a Romanian Orthodox church near an ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhood.
In November vandals poured acid on a car belonging to Sheikh Samir Aasi, the imam of al-Jazzar Mosque in Acre.
The Shin Bet and Israel Police warned at the time that "price tag" attacks were hard to stop as right-wing extremists and "hilltop youth" are the hardest people to recruit as informants.
“They have a fundamentalist mind-set, and they’re very devoted and confident, and the potential to recruit them as informers is close to zero,” a Shin Bet officer told theJerusalem Post.