Palestinians, regional nations condemn Israeli desecration of Holy Quran

Palestinian factions as well as countries around the world have condemned the desecration of a mosque and the Holy Quran by fanatic Israeli settlers during a Wednesday attack into a village in the occupied West Bank. 

Newly-released CCTV footage shows a group of Israeli settlers who stormed the Palestinian village of Urif south of Nablus entered a mosque and vandalized it, and also took a copy of the Holy Quran and ripped pages before throwing the holy book into the street.

Hazem Qassem, a spokesman for the Hamas resistance movement, said on Friday that what happened in the village of Urif is a heinous crime and a dangerous escalation of the religious war waged by the Zionists.

Qassem stressed that this barbaric behavior of the settler group, which was supported by the occupation military, was an insult to all the Palestinian people and an unprecedented disregard for their sanctities.

The spokesman called on Muslim nations and religious institutions to adopt a clear stance on the move, which he described as a "hateful racist" behavior.

Extremist Israeli settlers desecrate Muslim holy book, vandalize mosque in occupied West Bank

Masked extremist Israeli settlers have broken into a mosque in the occupied West Bank village of Urif, taking a copy of the Holy Quran and ripping the pages from it before throwing it into the street.

The spokesman said the Israeli occupation and its settlers are fully responsible for the repercussions of the religious war they’re waging on Muslim holy sites, and that they will pay the price for this crime and aggression against Palestinians.

Separately, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad said in a Friday statement that the settlers’ attacks are incited by the Israeli regime, holding it responsible for their serious repercussions.

The group also pledged the Palestinian resistance's response to such crimes.

Turkey's Foreign Ministry also condemned the attack as an unacceptable hate crime, calling for holding those responsible accountable.

Furthermore, Egypt's Ministry of Religious Endowments slammed the desecration of the Quran as real "terrorism, extremism and racism."

Surge in Israeli violence

The Wednesday attack by settlers came a day after four Israeli settlers were killed and another four were wounded in a shooting attack by two Palestinian resistance fighters at a gas station outside of the illegal settlement of Eli in the occupied West Bank.

The assailants, identified by the Israeli military as residents of the Urif village, were shot dead.

The northern West Bank has seen a spate of attacks on Israelis as well as attacks by settlers on Palestinian communities over the past week.

Israeli settlers rampaged through several Palestinian towns in the West Bank on Tuesday night, torching cars, setting farmland on fire, and vandalizing homes, in scenes reminiscent of a pogrom earlier this year in the village of Huwara.

On Monday, a large-scale Israeli military incursion into the Jenin refugee camp left seven people dead, including two 15-year-olds. At least 91 people were wounded during the nine-hour raid.

That confrontation saw Israel use helicopter gunships in the West Bank for the first time in decades, and Palestinian fighters detonated a large roadside bomb under an Israeli armored vehicle.

At least  170 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers since the start of the year. 

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