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Child dies after suspected Jewish extremist attack on Palestinian home Child dies after suspected Jewish extremist attack on Palestinian home
(35 minutes later)
A house fire in the occupied West Bank suspected to have been set by Jewish extremists killed an 18-month-old Palestinian child, injured a four-year-old brother and both parents on Friday, Israeli security officials said. A Palestinian child was killed and three family members critically wounded in a suspected arson attack by Jewish extremist on two homes in a West Bank village early Friday.
Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said the “Price Tag” slogan used in the past by extremist Israelis was daubed on the walls of the family home that had been torched in a village near the West Bank city of Nablus. 18 month old Ali Saad Daobasa reportedly burned to death, while his father and mother, Saad and Reham Daobasa, and another son, Ahmad, 4 years old, were taken to a hospital in critical condition.
Graffiti - known as “price tagging” - was found on the home that says “revenge” and “long live the messiah.”
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“This is a suspected attack with nationalist motives,” Samri said. It was the worst attack by Israeli extremists since a Palestinian teen was torched to death in a retribution slaying for three Israelis killed by abductors a year ago. IDF spokesperson Peter Lerner said the “attack against Palestinian civilians is a barbaric act of terrorism.”
The house at Kafr Duma was destroyed by fire, apparently as the family slept inside, and Israeli security forces were at the scene. A manhunt is currently underway to find the assailants. The IDF has set up road blocks and increased its force numbers.
A neighbouring house was also badly damaged but it had been empty and there were no casualties there. The three injured people from the first house were taken to Israeli hospitals, officials said. Eyewitnesses in the village say they saw three people enter the village at around 2.10am and that there was an attempt to break into another house.
The arsonists broke windows and threw firebombs into the Daobasa home.
The family awoke from the fire and escaped but did not manage to get Ali Saad out in time.
The attack appears to be an act of revenge for the recent demolition of two buildings in the nearby settlement Beit El, where settlers and Israeli police clashed on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Brigadier General Moti Elmoz told Israeli media: “I don’t remember such a grave incident in recent years. It is a crime, and there is a reason why we are calling it an act of terror.”
Education Minister and Jewish Home chairman Naftali Bennett tweeted on the attack: “Its not a hate crime or price tag, its murder. Terror is terror is terror” and called for the terrorists to be brought to tracked down immediately.
Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said: “This is a suspected attack with nationalist motives.”
It is the worst attack by suspected Israeli extremists since a Palestinian teen was torched to death in a retribution slaying for three Israelis killed by abductors a year ago.
The “Price Tag” group has been blamed for a string of mosque torchings in the West Bank in the past few years, often in retribution for Israeli actions against illegally built settlements.The “Price Tag” group has been blamed for a string of mosque torchings in the West Bank in the past few years, often in retribution for Israeli actions against illegally built settlements.
Israel tore down two illegal structures in the Beit El settlement earlier this week.