Mosque torched near Bethlehem in hate crime

A West Bank mosque was set alight in a village near Bethlehem Tuesday with anti-Arab slogans in Hebrew sprayed on a nearby wall, Palestinian witnesses said.

The fire was discovered in the mosque in Jaba village at around 4:00am. Villagers managed to put it out but there was some damage to the building.

On a nearby wall, the perpetrators had sprayed the word "revenge" and other slogans in Hebrew alongside a Star of David.

The attack and accompanying graffiti bore the hallmarks of a so-called "price tag" attack -- a euphemism for nationalistically motivated hate crime by Jewish extremists which generally targets Palestinians or Arab Israelis.