Unknown assailants have scrawled graffiti, including swastikas, on the walks of Joseph's Tomb in Nablus. Soldiers and worshippers arriving at the holy site on Wednesday night, exactly one year after the completion of its renovation, rushed to erase the graffiti.CNN adds
Shomron Regional Council head Gershon Mesika placed responsibility on the "Palestinian police terrorists."
When the first soldiers and worshippers arrived at the site, they immediately painted the graffiti in white and the prayer began.
Council head Mesika responded to the vandalism at the site, saying that "only barbarians could do such a horrible thing. People capable of desecrating such a holy site in a pathological manner do not deserve to be called humans."
The Israeli Civil Administration filed a complaint with the Palestinian Authority.Israel HaYom:
The vandalism at Joseph's Tomb included anti-Jewish writing as well as swastikas.
Israel's chief rabbis expressed their outrage at the attack. In a joint statement, Rabbis Shlomo Amar and Yona Metzger said it was "unacceptable that holy places become the targets of attacks of revenge between religions."
The chief rabbis called on the leadership of all the faiths in the Holy Land and across the world to loudly denounce the attack on Joseph's Tomb, as well as introduce into their flocks great respect for holy places.
The worshippers should have photographed the desecration before whitewashing it; the only photos available now don't show much:
It will be interesting to compare the world reactions to this outrage to those for the arson at a mosque in northern Israel on Sunday.
Israel announced that they had made an arrest in the mosque arson.