Dozens of armed Israeli settlers on June 10 attacked residents of Qusra village in the northern West Bank, Palestinian officials told Ma'an News Agency. PA settlement affairs official Ghassan Doughlas said settlers beat several residents at the entrance of the village, south of Nablus, and smashed the windscreen of a truck belonging to a local. Doughlas said the settlers were from "illegal" outpost Alei Ayin, which the Israeli army recently evacuated. Settlers from the same outpost are suspected of torching and vandalizing a mosque near Ramallah days earlier. Meanwhile, in the nearby village Iraq Burin, Israeli forces used tear gas and stun grenades to break up a weekly anti-settlement protest, residents told Ma'an. (Maan News Agency, June 12)

The mosque in the West Bank village of Maghayer (also rendered al-Mughayyir) suffered damage and threatening graffiti in a vandal attack in the wee hours of June 7. Burning tires were rolled into the mosque near Ramallah, setting rugs in the building on fire, and the walls were scrawled with anti-Arab slogans. The words "Alei Ayin" were also spray-painted on the walls, which is the name of a nearby Jewish settlement outpost demolished by Israeli police last week, sparking clashes with the settlers. Other slogans spray painted on the wall include "Price Tag," and "This is only the beginning." "Price tag" refers to the strategy extremist settlers have adopted to exact a price in attacks on Palestinians in retribution for moves against settlements or incidents such as the Itamar attack. Several West Bank mosques have been torched in the past year; most incidents were blamed on Jewish settlers. Israeli authorities say they are investigating the Maghayer attack. (Ma'an News Agency, JTA, June 7)

At least 5,000 people marched in central Tel Aviv on the night of June 4 in support of a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders. The march was sponsored by several parties and organizations, including Peace Now, Meretz, Hadash, Combatants for Peace and Gush Shalom, and Other Voice. Chants and slogans included "Netanyahu said no—We say yes to a Palestinian state," "Palestinian state—An Israeli interest," "Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies," and "Bibi, recognize the Palestinians." A few dozen right-wing activists held a counter demonstration at the start of the march. (JTA, June 5)

The land of one of the Bedouin communities slated to be evicted under a proposed Israeli government plan will be used for the construction of a new Jewish community, according to documents obtained by Adalah, the legal center for Arab minority rights in the Jewish state. In the coming weeks, the Israeli cabinet is expected to approve the forcible relocation of some 30,000 Bedouin to designated existing Bedouin towns. Residents of the community in question did not squat on the land, but were transferred there in 1956 by the direct order of the military administration then in place on Arab lands within Israel. Their lands now lie within the master plan of the Beersheba metropolitan area.

A new bill in the Knesset would change Jerusalem neighborhoods with Arabic names to Hebrew ones—Mamilla, Talbiya or Holyland becoming the Hagoshrim, Komemiyut and Eretz HaTzvi. MK Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) introduced the bill, and it has received endorsements by many other Knesset members from both the Likud-led ruling coalition and the opposition. "The purpose is to strengthen the bond to Jerusalem by enforcing the use of Hebrew names for the capital's neighborhoods where Jews reside," said Hotovely. The bill would apply to any neighborhood with Jewish residents. Old names would remain unchanged, but have a secondary status to the new Hebrew ones. The Jerusalem city government would have to complete the Hebraization of all city neighborhoods, replace the signposts and not use the previous names in any official matter. Several Arab-majority districts would be affected. The Palestinian town of Abu Dis (dissected by a security barrier with the western part under the Jerusalem government) will become Kidmat Zion. (YNet, May 30)

Some 1,600 Jewish worshipers escorted by Israeli soldiers visited the the West Bank holy site of Joseph's Tomb for late night prayers May 30—and some 50 then refused to leave when the allotted time for the visit was over, and had to be forcibly removed by the troops.Three were arrested. After the confrontation, villagers south of nearby Nablus reported seeing dozens of settlers set fire to agricultural lands. A settlement monitoring official with Fatah, Ghassan Doughlus, told Ma'an News Agency that residents of Madama village, whose lands were torched, believed the settlers were from the illegal residential community of Yitzhar, known for its militancy. Village official Ihab Al-Qett said local Palestinian fire crews were able to put out fires before significant damage was done.

Israeli military forces shut down Friday anti-wall protests in villages across the West Bank on May 27, saying the unarmed weekly demonstrations in Palestinian villages have been declared illegal. An army spokesman said the areas between Israel's separation wall and villages Ni'lin and Bil'in, near Ramallah, have been designated "closed military zones" every Friday between 8 AM and 8 PM. In Nil'in, where the wall cuts off around one third of the village, protesters on last Friday marked the third anniversary of their peaceful protest campaign against the barrier—over the course of which Israeli forces have killed five Palestinians and injured hundreds more. This Friday, for the first time the army installed a checkpoint at the entrance to Ni'lin, stopping residents from joining the protest. Troops fired tear-gas grenades into fields when protesters tried to evade the checkpoint, and residents said over 100 olive trees were set on fire.

Following a campaign by the Stop the JNF Campaign, British Prime Minister David Cameron's name has apparently been dropped from the list of honorary patrons of the Jewish National Fund-UK. Twelve days ago, Stop the JNF Campaign wrote to Cameron, reiterating a previous request for him to withdraw as patron of the charity. The campaign's Mortaza Sahibzada said: "His name has been taken off the list and that is significant. Someone has decided to take it off and I doubt whether it was JNF."