JERUSALEM (JTA) — Palestinian snipers fired at Israeli homes near the Gaza border, while in the West Bank extremist Jewish settlers apparently committed more price tag attacks against Palestinian sites.
The shots fired last Friday by the snipers damaged homes but did not cause injuries to people, according to reports. Residents were ordered to stay in their homes for an hour following the shots.
The snipers may have been targeting school bus stops on the street, where children wait in the morning at about the time that the shots were fired, Israel Hayom reported, citing unnamed defense officials.
The community, Netiv Haasara, is located slightly more than 400 yards from the Gaza border.
On Saturday night, a Kassam rocket fired from Gaza landed south of Ashkelon, according to reports. The launch activated the Color Red rocket alarm system.
Also Friday, slogans calling for the death of Arabs and saying "Muhammad is a pig" were found spray-painted on a wall at the Birzeit University near Ramallah, according to reports. More graffiti was discovered on a local mosque in the town of Birzeit.
Price tag refers to the strategy that the extremist settlers have adopted to exact a price in attacks on Palestinians in retribution for settlement freezes and demolitions or for Palestinian attacks on Jews.
The previous day, a mosque near Nablus was vandalized with spray-painted hate graffiti, including the slogan "price tag Migron." Two cars also were set on fire.
The United States condemned the "dangerous and provocative attacks."
"Such hateful actions are never justified," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Friday. "Those responsible should be arrested and subject to the full force of the law."
Nuland also praised the Israeli government for condemning the attacks.
Early Sept. 5, Israeli police razed three permanent homes at the Migron outpost several miles north of Jerusalem , as ordered by the Israeli Supreme Court. Several hours later, a mosque near Nablus was damaged by burning tires thrown into the building before prayers and the words "Alei Ayin and Migron — Social Justice" were spray-painted in Hebrew outside the building. Alei Ayin is another outpost where structures had been razed.
Two days later, 13 military vehicles were vandalized at a West Bank military base. Graffiti railed against Israeli army commanders and the dismantling of the Migron homes.
