Tel Aviv - Israeli settlers have vandalized a Muslim
cemetery in the northern West Bank, an Israeli newspaper reported
Sunday.
Some 1,300 Jewish settlers entered the Palestinian village of
Kifal Haris early Friday to pray at the tombstone of Biblical Jewish
leader Yehoshua Bin-Nun, Yediot Ahronot said.
The visit was authorized and guarded by the Israeli military,
which allows such pilgrimages every couple of months.
The settlers spent several hours in the village, during which they
punctured tyres of parked cars, broke several windows of private
houses and desecrated the local graveyard, breaking several
tombstones and spray-painting slogans on others saying 'death to the
Arabs' and 'Arab sons of bitches.'
A member of the village council said the settlers entered the
village at about 3 am (0000 GMT) and left at 7 am (0400 GMT) Friday.
'Imagine that they would desecrate a Jewish graveyard in France.
You would be outraged and recruit the whole world saying that this
was an anti-Semitic act,' he told the Israeli daily.
A team of Israeli army representatives, soldiers and settlers
arrived at the village early Sunday and repaired the damage after
coordination with the local Palestinian authorities, Israel Radio
reported.
The military representatives later Sunday morning met with the
village mayor and apologized.
The army said in a statement sent to Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa
that it viewed the incident with 'severity.'
The damage was done by a small group of people among the
worshippers who were seeking 'to create provocations,' it said.
A spokesman for the Yesha Settlers' Council, however, refused to
condemn the act, arguing the council had 'nothing to do with it.'
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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