Israeli policemen inspect a house after it was torched in a suspected attack by Jewish settlers killing an 18-month-old Palestinian child, his four-year-old brother and parents were wounded, according to a Palestinian official from the area, at Duma village near the West Bank city of Nablus, Friday, July 31, 2015. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says his government will have “zero tolerance” for Jewish extremists.
At his weekly Cabinet meeting yesterday, Netanyahu said Israel was united against “the criminals among our people” following a pair of attacks that shocked the country. On Friday, suspected Jewish extremists set fire to a Palestinian home in the West Bank and burned a toddler to death. On Thursday, an ultra-Orthodox Jew stabbed revelers at a Gay Pride parade in Jerusalem.
Thousands of Israelis took to the streets over the weekend to protest the attacks and warn against a radicalized and violent fringe growing from within the country’s religious community.
The extremist attacks, which most recently struck a famous church in northern Israel, have rarely caused fatal injuries, which made Friday’s incident, in which 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh was killed and his parents and 4-year-old brother critically wounded, all the more worrying.
Witnesses and the Israeli military said that under cover of darkness, the attackers broke the windows of the family’s home in Duma, a small village near the West Bank city of Nablus. They lobbed a fire bomb into the sleeping family’s bedroom which exploded into a fireball that quickly consumed the home.
The suspects, who fled the scene, scribbled graffiti on the walls reading “Long live the Messiah,” ‘’revenge” and “price tag,” as well as a Jewish star of David. The military said they were searching for the assailants.
Riham Dawabsheh, the boy’s mother, ran out of the house as she was engulfed by flames and a neighbor, Mohammed Ibrahim Dawabsheh, said he covered her in a sheet to try to extinguish the flames. She, as well as her husband Saed and son Ahmad, were taken to an Israeli hospital for treatment, where they remained in critical condition with severe burn wounds.
Israeli officials, including Netanyahu, visited the family at the hospital. Netanyahu yesterday said Israel is determined to fight “hate, fanaticism and terrorism from whatever side.” AP
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