Israeli settlers desecrate graveyard in West Bank village (Roundup)

Jun 10, 2007, 13:11 GMT

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.'