Settlers torch mosque

REVENGE: UNREST ESCALATES AFTER RECENT PALESTINIAN KNIFE ATTACKS

Kerry to meet Jordan king to discuss spiralling violence.

Israeli settlers torched a West Bank mosque in an apparent revenge attack yesterday, Palestinian officials said. Months of unrest have escalated in recent days, spreading from annexed east Jerusalem to the occupied West Bank and Arab communities throughout Israel, and raising fears of a new Palestinian uprising.

US Secretary of State John Kerry was headed to neighbouring Jordan for talks with King Abdullah II that were expected to focus on the worsening unrest, as well as the US-led campaign against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

In a televised address Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had ordered a raft of additional security measures nationwide to tackle escalating Arab protests.

The predawn arson attack on a mosque near the Jewish settlement of Shilo came after separate Palestinian knife attacks on Monday killed a settler in the southern West Bank and an Israeli soldier in Tel Aviv.

“The settlers set fire to the whole of the first floor of the mosque” in Al-Mughayir village near the West Bank city of Ramallah, a security official said.

Also overnight, a Molotov cocktail was thrown at a synagogue in the Arab Israeli town of Shfaram, causing minor damage, police said.

The attack on the mosque came with Palestinian anger already running high after Israeli troops shot dead a protester in the southern West Bank on Tuesday.

The death of the 22-year-old near Hebron came as troops tried to disperse about 150 Palestinians who were hurling rocks and Molotov cocktails at passing cars close to the Kiryat Arba settlement, the army said. –