Palestinian toddler burned to death in ‘settler’ arson attack

DUMA, July 31

A Palestinian toddler was burned to death and four family members wounded in an arson attack by suspected Jewish settlers on two homes in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Friday.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the firebombing in Duma village near the northern city of Nablus “an act of terrorism in every respect” and ordered security forces to hunt down the assailants.

The attack further stoked tensions between Israelis and Palestinians, two days after Netanyahu controversially approved 300 new settler homes in the West Bank.

The Palestine Liberation Organisation said it held Netanyahu’s government “fully responsible” for the death of 18-month-old Ali Saad Dawabsha, arguing it was “a direct consequence of decades of impunity given by the Israeli government to settler terrorism”.

Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas called for an investigation by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, while hundreds of Palestinians protested after leaving mosques following the main weekly prayers, with reports of sporadic clashes. Israeli troops shot and wounded one protester in the “lower extremities” during clashes in the city of Hebron, the army said.

Several thousand people also took to the streets in Duma for the funeral of the toddler, whose body was wrapped in a Palestinian flag.