Jewish settlers raid Palestinian village in West Bank

By Qais Abu Samra

BETHLEHEM, Palestine (AA) - Jewish settlers on Friday spray-painted racist slogans on the walls of homes and a mosque -- and vandalized several vehicles -- near the West Bank city Bethlehem, according to eyewitness.

Local resident Hilal Mashaaleh told Anadolu Agency that a group of Jewish settlers had stormed the village of Al-Jibaa west of Bethlehem and spray-painted anti-Arab slogans in Hebrew on the walls of a local mosque and on several Palestinian homes.

Settlers, he said, had also vandalized four Palestinian-owned vehicles.

According to Palestinian figures, more than 700,000 Jewish settlers currently live on 196 settlements (built with the Israeli government’s approval) and more than 200 settler outposts (built without its approval) across the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

International law views the West Bank and East Jerusalem as "occupied territories" and considers all Jewish settlement-building activity there to be illegal.