Record settler attacks in West Bank opening up rifts within Israel

The marks of the attack on Hamida Mosque, near Deir Istiya in the occupied West Bank, are still scattered on the ground outside.

Charred furniture, lecterns and smoky curls of carpet are piled around the entrance - its guts emptied, and debris cleared, in time for Friday prayers.

Dozens of men arrived for the prayers in a show of defiance - their backs turned towards the scorched and blackened wall.

The imam here, Ahmad Salman, told the BBC the attack on Thursday was a message from Jewish settlers, amid a wave of settler violence across the West Bank.

"The message they want to send is that they can reach anywhere - into cities, into villages, that they can kill civilians and burn houses and mosques."

"I feel it in my soul," he said. "It's not right to touch places of prayer, wherever they are."

But there was a message here, too, for Israel's regional military chief - scrawled in Hebrew on the mosque's exterior wall: "We're not afraid of you, Avi Bluth."

Read the full BBC news article here