"Ten suspects, members of the Lehava organization, have been arrested for questioning following incitement and calls for racist acts of violence and terror," the Israeli police said in a statement on Tuesday. The leader of the anti-Arab group, Bentzi Gopstein, was also among the detainees.
The suspects were detained in the towns of Petah Tikva and Netivot, as well as in al-Quds (Jerusalem) and illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. The police also confiscated some pieces of equipment belonging to the members of the group.
On November 29, Israeli police spokeswoman Luba Samri said the incident took place when a classroom in the school was set on fire. The arsonists wrote graffiti on the wall, reading, “Death to Arabs.” The attack, according to Samri, appeared to be a so-called “price tag” attack.
Price tag attacks are acts of vandalism and violence against Palestinians and their property as well as Islamic holy sites by Israeli settlers. The settlers, mostly armed, regularly attack Palestinian villages and farms and set fire to their mosques, olive groves and other properties in the West Bank under the so-called “price tag” policy. However, Tel Aviv rarely detains the assailants.
On November 12, Israeli settlers launched an arson attack on a Palestinian mosque in the village of al-Mughayir, near the West Bank city of Ramallah, torching part of the holy place. In mid-October, Israeli settlers set ablaze part of the Abu Baker al-Saddiq Mosque, which is located in the village of Aqraba in the West Bank.
World Bulletin