Today, Thursday, Israeli settlers set fire to a mosque between the towns of Deir Istiya and Kafr Haris in the central West Bank, amid an escalating wave of violence against the Palestinian Strip.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that the Hajja Hamida Mosque was exposed to a fire that, although it caused damage to the temple, was unable to spread thanks to the intervention of neighbors. No injuries were reported as a result of the fire.
A group of settlers threw flammable materials at the entrance to the mosque located in Salfit Governorate, and wrote racist and hostile messages towards the Palestinian population on its walls.
The crisis resulting from the Israeli attacks in the West Bank has emerged again with the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the Israeli Parliament’s approval of the first reading of a draft law imposing the death penalty on those convicted of “terrorism” crimes, and it will only be applied to Palestinians convicted of killing Israelis.
IDF operations and Israeli settler attacks in the West Bank and East Jerusalem have left more than a thousand Palestinians dead since these types of actions increased after October 7, 2023, despite record numbers of deaths in these territories in the first nine months of that year.
According to United Nations data, in 2024, nearly 500 Palestinians were killed, while so far this year more than 210 people have been killed in the context of occupation and conflict.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) recorded more than 260 attacks launched by Israeli settlers in the West Bank during the month of October 2025, which is a monthly record since the beginning of this UN department’s records in 2006.
About The Author
