Friday 4:30 am , January 24^th 2020 , a group of price tag settlers set fire on Al-Badriya mosque in Shurfat village south Jerusalem.

Flames ate the interior of the mosque, while settlers wrote hatred inciting slogans in Hebrew on the walls, and drew their signature, to show who is behind the attack.

Village chief Ismael ‘Awad told LRC:

“I headed to the mosque to perform The Fajr Prayer (Salat), but when I got there I saw flames eating the mosque in the inside , I was alone so I used my prayer rug to put down the fire, and each time I felt a short of breathe , I left the mosque to have some fresh air and came back  , then other worshippers came along and helped me to stop the fire .”

‘Awad asserted, this mosque was built before 600 years , we see a writing on its entrance that says “This is a mosque and a shrine of the Al-Badreieen who are the descendants of Badr Ed-Dean Ben Badran , one of Zain Al-Abdeen Ben Al-Hussain Ben Ali grandchildren”.

Noteworthy, this is not the first time the price tag group targets a worshipping place , several attacks on mosques, shrines , churches and even cemeteries were documented , such as writing hatred inciting slogans or setting fire in the place, and destroying graves.

The price tag group also targets Palestinians and their properties, amongst the most recent attacks was documenting slashing car tires of 185 cars in Shu’fat, while the Israeli occupation police and government watch silently, doing nothing to stop the attacks and protecting settlers from any reactions.

About Shurfat village:[1]

Shurfat is located to the south west of Jerusalem , bordered by 1967 borders (north), Al-Walaja village (west) , Beit Safafa (east), Beit Jala and Bethlehem (south).

Shurfat village has a population of 3000 people according to 2013 census.

It has a total area of 2,647 , of which 168 dunums are a built up area.

The occupation confiscated about (1,010) dunums from the town’s lands for the following purposes:

The apartheid wall completely isolated the village from the West Bank and annexed it to Jerusalem borders since 1967.

[1] GIS-LRC

Protecting marginalized communities in Jerusalem through legal support and advocacy

This report was prepared with EU funding, the contents of this document do not reflect positions of the European Union