Jerusalem, December 11 (RHC)-- Israeli settlers have vandalized more than 160 Palestinian vehicles in the occupied East Jerusalem, slashing the tires of parked cars and spraying racist graffiti on nearby walls.  Local residents said that a group of settlers had raided the Shuafaat neighborhood overnight.

Maysa Abu Khdair, a resident whose car was damaged and whose surveillance cameras caught the scene, blamed extremist settlers for the latest incident of vandalism.  “Three masked settlers sneaked into the neighborhood early and damaged the tires of cars on the main street.”

The Palestine Information Center reported that the settlers are believed to be from the illegal settlement of Ramat Shlomo,  located in the mainly Palestinian eastern sector of Jerusalem.   Israeli police said an investigation had been opened into the incident, and that officers were searching for the perpetrators.

The episode bore the hallmark of a ‘price tag’ attack, a euphemism for hate crimes that generally target Palestinian property across the occupied land.  Back on October 12th last year, Aisha Muhammad Talal al-Rabi, 47, a mother of eight children, was killed and her husband suffered injuries after Israeli settlers hurled rocks at their vehicle near the Zaatara checkpoint in Nablus.

Also on August 19 of that year, a Palestinian man and his three children suffered injuries when a group of settlers violently pelted their car with stones in the northern part of the West Bank.

Price tag attacks are acts of vandalism and violence carried out by Israeli settlers against Palestinians and their property as well as Islamic holy sites.

According to human rights groups, incidents of sabotage and violence by extremist Jewish settlers against Palestinians and their property are a daily occurrence throughout the West Bank.