HEBRON, Nov 20: Jewish settlers angry at an Israeli court order for their eviction from a house in Hebron desecrated a mosque and tombs in the flashpoint West Bank City before dawn on Thursday, witnesses said.

The settlers scrawled “Death to the Arabs” and some blasphemous remarks against the Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him) on the front of a mosque and drew the Israeli emblem, the Star of David, on several gravestones in a Muslim cemetery, the witnesses said.

The mosque and cemetery both lie near the Hebron house where dozens of hardline Jewish settlers are defying the order by the Israeli High Court setting last Wednesday a deadline for them to leave or face eviction. Israeli soldiers are on round-the-clock patrol in the tense neighbourhood.—AFP