Amid escalating tensions in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, two mosques were torched overnight, with officials attributing the apparent arson to Israeli settlers. This violent episode follows a recent surge in hostilities that claimed the lives of four Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers.
Both Palestinians and figures within Israel’s opposition are voicing accusations against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-line government, alleging it overlooks settler attacks against Palestinians. Such aggression, they warn, risks igniting a broader wave of violence throughout the region.
In response, Israeli military and law enforcement have been deployed extensively across the West Bank, implementing road closures and restricting access to local medical facilities. Over the weekend, authorities also detained over 70 Palestinians, heightening the region’s already tense atmosphere.
The mosque attacks, occurring in the northern West Bank villages of Qusra and Kour, resulted in significant damage to each mosque’s structure.
In Qusra, vandals left behind a chilling message, spray-painting “revenge Benayahu,” alluding to a settler who was killed recently. They also ominously declared, “the land of Israel is redeemed with blood.”
Ahmed Abu Mahmoud, 64, who lives next to the Qusra mosque, said he heard noises at 3am and discovered the mosque had been set on fire. The fire was too large for him to fight on his own, so he called for help.
“The military arrived here, saw with their own eyes and then left,” Mahmoud said.
He added that the attackers spray-painted Hebrew graffiti on the mosque’s walls, including the word “revenge”.
Security footage in Kour obtained by The Associated Press showed three people dressed in civilian clothes setting off a large explosion in the entrance of the mosque in the middle of the night.
On Sunday, residents held prayers despite damage to the entrance.
In a separate incident, Israeli settlers set fire to a mosque in the village of Kour, near Tulkarem, and spray-painted racist slogans on its walls, according to the Palestinian ministry of religious affairs.
The ministry said that “groups of settlers burned a mosque in the village of Kour in Tulkarem governorate and wrote racist slogans on its walls”.
Israel’s military said it was working with police to investigate the mosque attack.
“The security forces strongly condemn incidents of this kind, including harm to religious sites, and will continue to act decisively to maintain security and public order in the area,” it said.
The Israeli army often announces investigations into violence against Palestinians but rarely makes arrests or prosecutes settlers involved in violence.
The exact circumstances of Friday’s deadly incidents remained unclear, but Israeli media reports and interviews with local Palestinian officials said they were sparked after a group of armed settlers entered the village of Tell and were resisted by residents who were fearful of an attack.
According to the Israeli military, one of the Palestinians took one of the settlers’ weapons and fired on the group, killing a security guard from a nearby settlement.
Palestinians and human rights groups have increasingly documented armed Israeli settlers entering villages in the area. Livestock theft, arson and the defacement of mosques are routinely reported.
According to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) tally based on data from the Palestinian health ministry, Israeli soldiers or settlers have killed at least 1,097 Palestinians since the start of the Gaza war.
Leaders condemn Israel’s ‘extremist ambitions’
Arab League secretary-general Nabil Fahmy urged US President Donald Trump to restrain “the Israeli government’s extremist ambitions”, including its implementation of a “de facto annexation in the West Bank”.
He called on Trump to confront Netanyahu ahead of their meeting in the United States this week.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas sent letters to Arab and other allies, including the European Union, urging them to pressure Israel to stop settler violence in the West Bank, which he described as a systemic Israeli policy and a dangerous escalation.
The Palestinian Authority is the internationally recognised representative of the Palestinian people.
According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, 87 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank this year, including 21 by Israeli settlers. Three Israeli settlers have been killed in 2026, including the two on Friday.
More than 700,000 Israeli settlers live in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories seized by Israel in 1967 and sought by the Palestinians for a future independent state.
All Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are illegal under international law.
In recent years, the number of illegal settlements in the Palestinian territory has soared.