A Palestinian man inspects the damage inside a mosque burnt by Israeli settlers over night, in the Israeli occupied West Bank village of Jiljlia, just north of the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah on 17 June 2026. [Getty]
Israeli settlers set fire to a mosque in a village north of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, the local mayor said.
The incident comes amid an increase in attacks against Palestinian communities by fanatical Israeli settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank since the start of the genocidal war on Gaza in 2023.
Osama Abdullah, head of the village council in Jiljiliya, north of Ramallah, told AFP that “settlers set fire to the ablution room, caused damage to the village’s main mosque, and scrawled hostile slogans on the outer walls”.
The mosque’s ceiling, walls and floors were blackened by smoke and flames.
Graffiti in Hebrew had been scrawled on the walls, including some reading “vengeance” and “hi from the Hilltop Youth”.
The Hilltop Youth are a group of fanatical Israelis squatting illegally in the occupied West Bank who regularly resort to violence towards Palestinians to evict them from areas they wish to take over.
Mayor Abdullah said settlers arrived to burn down the mosque between 2 am and 3 am, but found its door was locked, so instead set fire to a room dedicated to ablutions on a lower floor.
He said Palestinian civil defence crews, along with young men from the village and neighbouring areas, extinguished the blaze.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967. More than 500,000 Israeli settlers live illegally in the territory, excluding East Jerusalem, among some three million Palestinians.
Settlements, which are illegal under international law, have sprouted all over the occupied West Bank for decades.
The United Nations recently warned that Israeli settler violence, backed by the Israeli military, in the occupied West Bank has reached record levels, with an average of six attacks daily causing casualties or damage.
