Racist slurs scrawled in Arab Jerusalem area
Vandals slash car tyres and spray anti-Arab graffiti on buses in Palestinian neighbourhood, police say.
Israeli police have said that vandals have slashed car tyres and sprayed a bus with hate graffiti in a predominantly Arab neighbourhood in Jerusalem, the latest in a series of similar incidents.
Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said 34 cars were found damaged early on Monday in Beit Hanina in East Jerusalem.
She said one bus had “non-Jews in Israel = enemies” scrawled on it in Hebrew.
Samri said police were investigating the incident and searching for suspects.
Local residents told AFP news agency that security cameras at the site showed a group of men committed the crime, which bore the hallmarks of a “price tag” attack, a euphemism for hate crimes that generally target Palestinians.
Initially carried out against Palestinians in retaliation to state moves to dismantle unauthorised settler outposts, the attacks have since become a much broader phenomenon, with racist and xenophobic overtones.
Mosques, churches, dovish Israeli groups and even Israeli military bases have been targeted in the assaults, which have been widely condemned by Israeli leaders across the political spectrum.
In June, 21 cars were vandalised in a similar attack in Beit Hanina not far from Monday’s attack. Last month, the tyres of 31 cars were slashed in a Palestinian neighbourhood in the southern sector of East Jerusalem.