Israeli forces have fired tear gasoline right into a mosque within the occupied West Financial institution, leaving worshippers inside struggling to breathe, hours after settlers tried to set hearth to a second mosque within the territory.
The Palestinian Ministry of Spiritual Affairs condemned the continued pogroms on Tuesday, calling them a flagrant violation of the sanctity of locations of worship.
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Footage, verified by Al Jazeera, confirmed worshippers on the mosque in Madama, close to Nablus, coughing within the aftermath of the tear gasoline assault.
One aged man was seen bent over as one other tried to assist him.
The ministry mentioned Israeli forces “fired tear gasoline canisters” into the mosque as folks gathered for his or her night prayers. The assault “resulted in a number of aged worshippers affected by suffocation and prompted widespread disruption to the congregation”, it added.
The assault in Madama got here hours after Israeli settlers tried to set hearth to a different mosque within the close by city of Bazariya.
Photographs and movies from Nur al-Din Zanki Mosque confirmed blackened burn marks round a window of a room and Hebrew phrases sprayed on the outside partitions.
Majed Nasr, who lives close to the mosque, mentioned the assault came about early on Tuesday morning. “There was a small explosion that prompted a fireplace contained in the mosque constructing,” he advised the AFP information company. “We managed to include the blaze earlier than issues might worsen and attain the principle higher a part of the constructing.”
The Spiritual Affairs Ministry condemned the “legal assault” and mentioned some 13 mosques have been “violated” by the Israeli navy or settlers for the reason that begin of 2026.
Native sources advised the Anadolu company that the racist slogans sprayed on the web site included threats in opposition to Palestinians and a message to the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, saying: “Huckabee, greetings from the terrorists.”
Final month, Huckabee had described Israeli settlers attacking Palestinians within the city of Qusra and different areas of the occupied West Financial institution as “terrorists”.
The workplace of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas issued an announcement following the Madama assault, warning of “the hazards of the continued and escalating non secular warfare” waged by Israeli forces and settlers in opposition to non secular websites within the occupied West Financial institution, together with the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem.
The “systematic assaults … crossed all pink strains and risked triggering a non secular battle with severe penalties for the area and the world”, it mentioned.
Settlers additionally burned automobiles within the city of Beta, south of Nablus, and set hearth to a Palestinian automobile in Nahalin, west of Bethlehem, on Tuesday, in line with media stories and photographs posted on-line.
The assaults come amid a pointy improve in pogroms by Israeli forces and settlers throughout the occupied West Financial institution.
The United Nations mentioned in August that a minimum of 76 Palestinians have been killed within the territory this 12 months and that some 3,800 folks have been displaced by settler violence, in addition to demolitions and evictions.
It additionally mentioned settler violence had reached “unprecedented ranges,” with greater than 1,430 assaults leading to casualties or property injury documented this 12 months.
Elsewhere within the occupied West Financial institution, Israeli forces arrested a minimum of 14 Palestinians, together with 5 in Rummanah, one on the Anab checkpoint, one in Tammun, three in Hebron, two in Bethlehem and two in Nablus.
Israeli forces additionally uprooted olive timber close to Jenin, demolished greenhouses and issued a demolition discover for a house within the city of Idhna.
