JERUSALEM (JTA) — Hours after Israeli police razed three homes in the Migron outpost, a West Bank mosque was vandalized allegedly in retribution.
Unknown assailants broke windows Monday on the first floor of the mosque near Nablus and threw burning tires into the building before prayers, according to reports. The words "Alei Ayin and Migron — Social Justice" were spray-painted in Hebrew outside the building.
The vandalism was believed to be a "price tag" attack, referring to the strategy that extremist settlers have adopted to exact a price in attacks on Palestinians in retribution for settlement freezes and demolitions or for Palestinian attacks on Jews.
Palestinian authorities claim settlers have attacked at least six mosques in the West Bank in the past two years.
In the wee hours Monday, several hundred police officers had arrived at the Migron outpost several miles north of Jerusalem to raze three permanent homes. The operation was halted at one point following an injunction by a Supreme Court justice but resumed after the high court issued another order sanctioning the demolition.
Six teens who threw stones at the police were arrested.
The three structures were home to several families, including one woman who recently had a baby, according to The Jerusalem Post. They had been ordered razed by the Supreme Court following a lawsuit filed by the Yesh Din Israeli human rights group.
Last month, the Supreme Court ordered the state to dismantle the entire outpost, home to about 50 families, by April 2012 following a petition by Peace Now. The court determined that Migron was built on private Palestinian lands.
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