Israeli forces have fired tear gas into a mosque in the occupied West Bank, leaving worshippers inside struggling to breathe, hours after settlers tried to set fire to a second mosque in the territory.
The attacks on Tuesday came as the Palestinian Ministry of Religious Affairs said at least 13 mosques have been “violated” by the Israeli military or settlers since the start of the year.
Footage, verified by Al Jazeera, showed worshippers at the mosque in Madama, near Nablus, coughing in the aftermath of the tear gas attack. One elderly man was seen bent over as another tried to help him.
The ministry said Israeli forces “fired tear gas canisters” into the mosque as people gathered for their evening prayers. The attack “resulted in several elderly worshippers suffering from suffocation and caused widespread disruption to the congregation”, it added.
The attack in Madama came hours after Israeli settlers tried to set fire to another mosque in the nearby town of Bazariya.
Photos and videos from Nur al-Din Zanki Mosque showed blackened burn marks around a window of a room and Hebrew phrases sprayed on the exterior walls.
Majed Nasr, who lives near the mosque, said the attack took place early on Tuesday morning. “There was a small explosion that caused a fire inside the mosque building,” he told the AFP news agency. “We managed to contain the blaze before things could get worse and reach the main upper part of the building.”
The Religious Affairs Ministry condemned the incident as a “criminal attack”.
Local sources told the Anadolu agency that the racist slogans sprayed at the site included threats against Palestinians and a message to the United States ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, saying: “Huckabee, greetings from the terrorists.”
Last month, Huckabee had described Israeli settlers attacking Palestinians in the town of Qusra and other areas of the occupied West Bank as “terrorists”.
The attacks in Madama and Bazariya come as Israeli raids on West Bank mosques have surged following the launch of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza in 2023.
Data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) and Anadolu showed an average of four mosque attacks each year between 2017 and 2022. That figure tripled after the war on Gaza in 2023, with an average of 10 a year. This year’s is the highest annual figure since 2017.
The office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas issued a statement following the Madama attack, warning of “the dangers of the continued and escalating religious war” waged by Israeli forces and settlers against religious sites in the occupied West Bank, including the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem.
The “systematic attacks … crossed all red lines and risked triggering a religious conflict with serious consequences for the region and the world”, it said.
Israeli settlers also burned vehicles in the town of Beta, south of Nablus, and set fire to a Palestinian vehicle in Nahalin, west of Bethlehem, on Tuesday, according to media reports and footage posted online.
The attacks come amid a sharp increase in pogroms by Israeli forces and settlers across the occupied West Bank.
The United Nations said in August that at least 76 Palestinians have been killed in the territory this year and that some 3,800 people have been displaced by settler violence, as well as demolitions and evictions.
It also said settler violence had reached “unprecedented levels,” with more than 1,430 attacks resulting in casualties or property damage documented this year.
Elsewhere in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, Israeli forces arrested at least 14 Palestinians, including five in Rummanah, one at the Anabta checkpoint, one in Tammun, three in Hebron, two in Bethlehem and two in Nablus.
Israeli forces also uprooted olive trees near Jenin, demolished greenhouses and issued a demolition notice for a home in the town of Idhna.
