Palestinian Cars Attacked by Arsonist Settlers

Palestinian Cars Attacked by Arsonist Settlers

Palestine News Network

August 24, 2012 Two Israeli settlers attempted to set two Palestinian cars on fire in the village of Awarta near Nablus, late on Tuesday night, but ran away when the family woke up, Israeli media reported. Iyad Qawareq, 31, told The Jerusalem Post, that he was awoken by noise outside his house at 2.30am on Wednesday morning, and saw "two settlers wearing kippot" pouring fuel on the two family cars parked outside the three storey house. A third man stayed in the driver set of the attackers' car, none of whom had made any attempt to hide their faces, Iyad added. The two men had also sprayed graffiti on the family's garage before Iyad woke up and shouted at the men to stop pouring fuel on the cars. Umm Jamal, Qawareq's mother, said, "We looked from our window and saw the attackers escaping in their yellow [Israeli license] plated, white car speeding toward the direction of the neighboring Yitzhar settlement." Chief Inspector Dudi Asraf, the Israeli spokesman for the Judea and Samaria Police District, stated that the police had opened an investigation after a delay of a few hours due to a wait for security clearance to enter the village. Asraf said that additional Israeli police weren't being deployed, despite this incident following a recent string of "price tag" attacks on Palestinians in the last week. He did admit that the damage caused in these recent attacks have been more extensive than in previous ones, according to The Jerusalem Post. Iyad told the newspaper that the Israeli Army called the house several times to check on their security and arrived at 7.30am to the house. Members of the Israeli Army, police and intelligence took testimonies from the family, as well as collecting fingerprints and the fuel cans that had been left behind. Loui Qawareq, Iyad's brother, told The Jerusalem Post that the Israeli police had refused to leave the family's home before they painted over the Hebrew graffiti that the settlers had sprayed. "We asked the Israeli policemen to translate for us but they said what was written was not important. I don't really know what they wrote but from the drawing I saw, I suspect it has to do with attacking our religion," Loui said. This latest incident follows the attack on a Palestinian taxi that left six injured with severe burn wounds, and the attempted arson attack on a Palestinian home in the village of Far'ata near Nablus, both of which happened in the last week. So-called "price tag" attacks are violent acts by settlers taken in revenge for what they perceive to be anti-settler actions by the Israeli government and army. Source