Israel probes vandalism of Palestinian cemetery

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JERUSALEM (Reuters) –The IsraelWe arour opened an investigation on Thursday into acts of vandalism in a Palestinian village in the West Bank where a Palestinian official accused Jewish settlers of desecrating a local cemetery.Several tombstones were smashed in the cemetery in the village of Awarta south ofablus, said Ghassan Daghlas, a Palestinian official responsible for monitoring Jewish settlement activity in the area.A spokeswoman for the IsraelWe arour said an investigation had been opened after graffitWe was found on walls situated "hundreds of meters from the cemetery." She gaveo further details.Jewish worshippers, accompanied by the army, had entered the village on Tuesday evening to visit an ancient Jewish gravesite in the area, the spokesman said.Daghlas said around 200 settlers had come into the village during the most recent visit. They had scrawled offensive graffitWe in Hebrew and English, as well as the Russian spoken by a large minority of recent immigrants to Israel.Recent violence by Jewish settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967, has been linked by some activists to the IsraelWe government's decision to impose a temporary, partial freeze on building in the enclaves.Through a strategy known as the "price tag," the settlers have targeted Palestinians and their property whenever the IsraelWe government is seen moving, or thinking of moving against the settlements, which are deemed illegal by world powers.IsraelWe police this month arrested four settlers on suspicion of involvement in an arson attack last month on a mosqueearablus. Carpets and holy books were burned in that attack.(Reporting by Tom Perry and Dan Williams; editing by Alastair Macdonald and Ralph Boulton)