Overview
- The main mosque in the West Bank village of Jiljiliya was damaged in a suspected arson attack that occurred on Wednesday, June 17, and AFP reporters found smoke-blackened ceilings, walls and floors.
- Village officials said attackers arrived between 2am and 3am, failed to enter through the locked main door, then set fire to an ablutions room on a lower floor that Palestinian civil defence crews and residents extinguished.
- Hebrew graffiti including the words “vengeance” and a reference to the Hilltop Youth was found on the mosque walls, and the Hilltop Youth are a radical settler group often accused of violent actions against Palestinians.
- On June 18, the foreign ministers of the UAE, Jordan, Türkiye, Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar issued a joint condemnation that held Israel responsible as the occupying power and called for perpetrators to be held to account.
- The incident adds to a broader rise in settler attacks across the West Bank since the 2023 Gaza war, a trend the United Nations says has reached record levels and that residents say fuels fear, damages community life and risks heightening regional tensions.