Jewish Teens Charged with Hate Crimes on Palestinians

Israeli prosecutors have charged two Jewish youths with vandalising Palestinian cars and incitement to racism, a police statement said on Monday.

It said that they were arrested on October 21 and last week charged with puncturing the tires of Palestinian-owned vehicles in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

Police spokeswoman Luba Samri told Agence France Presse that the accused were aged 15 and 16 years; one from Beitar Illit settlement, the other from Jerusalem.

The statement said that in June they punctured the tires of two cars in the occupied West Bank and pasted a sticker on a third car reading, "Revenge on the Arabs."

During police questioning one of the accused also confessed that in a more recent attack, he and the other also punctured car tires in the walled Old City of Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem and daubed graffiti on the walls of a bakery, reading "death to the Arabs," the statement said.

Jewish extremist attacks on Palestinians are often euphemistically referred to as "price tag" incidents and tend to occur after Israeli government moves against settler outposts.

Such incidents tend to involve the wanton destruction of property and have included arson attacks on cars, mosques and olive trees.

Diplomats and right groups have condemned the attacks and criticized the low rate of arrest and conviction of perpetrators.

Monday's statement said that over the past few months police have been engaged in "an intensive investigation into criminals carrying out ideologically-motivated crimes."