Israeli police said Friday they are investigating after a “room was ignited” in a mosque on the outskirts of Jerusalem and Hebrew graffiti was found on an outside wall.
There were no reports of any injuries and police said they have opened an investigation.
The graffiti was hard to make out but appears to have been left by ultranationalist Israelis. One part read, “Demolishing (for) Jews? Demolishing enemies!” an apparent reference to the dismantling of settler outposts in the West Bank.
The illegal neighborhood provided a “tailwind” for an increase in attacks on Palestinians and Israeli security forces in recent months, a security official told the Times of Israel last month.
The outpost is home to seven families along with roughly a dozen extremist Israeli teens known as hilltop youth. Earlier this month security forces razed a pair of illegally built settler homes in the outpost.
The mosque is in the Arab neighborhood of Beit Safafa, in annexed east Jerusalem. Israel captured east Jerusalem along with the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war. The Palestinians want both areas as part of their future state.
The IDF declared the wildcat community a closed military zone in October after a number of young settlers living there were involved in a string of violent attacks on Palestinians and security forces.
In a statement, Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion said he “strongly condemns the hate crime committed in the Beit Safafa neighborhood. Such things are unacceptable and not tolerated.”
Hard-line Israeli nationalists have been implicated in past attacks on Palestinians and their property in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
