Muslim-majority countries, including regional powers Türkiye and Saudi Arabia, on Thursday criticized Israel for arson attacks on two mosques in the occupied West Bank, after Palestinian officials said illegal Israeli settlers set the sites ablaze in the latest escalation of violence in the territory.
The foreign ministers of Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE, Qatar, Indonesia, Pakistan and Egypt lambasted "the continued and escalating settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank," pointing to the mosques that were set on fire a day earlier.
"The Ministers hold Israel – as the occupying power – responsible for these attacks," they said in a joint statement.
On Wednesday, Israeli settlers set fire to mosques in the West Bank villages of Jiljiliya, north of Ramallah, and neighboring Mazari an-Nubani, their mayors said, with AFP journalists at one site seeing scorched walls and graffiti.
Israel's military confirmed the arson and graffiti on the mosques, but did not identify the perpetrators.
AFP journalists who visited one torched mosque saw graffiti daubed on the walls in Hebrew. Some read "vengeance" and: "Hi, from the Hilltop Youth."
The Hilltop Youth is a terrorist group that consists of radical Israelis in the West Bank who commit violence toward Palestinians, whom they seek to evict from areas they want to take over.
The incidents came during a period of increased attacks against Palestinian communities by settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank since October 2023.
