JERUSALEM, March 25 (Xinhua) -- Dozens of vehicles were vandalized in an apparently anti-Arab hate crime in central Israel on Thursday, the police said.
The incident took place in the Arab city of Kafr Qasim before dawn.
Tires of dozens of cars were slashed and several vehicles graffitied with hate slogans, according to a police statement.
One of the slogans reads: "expel or kill" with a Star of David next to it.
Tag Meir, an Israeli human rights group, denounced the incident as "a despicable hate crime." In a statement, the group said similar incidents took place in Beit Iksa, a Palestinian village in the Jerusalem area, and Ein Naqquba, an Arab village in central Israel, where cars had been torched over the past two weeks.
Israeli extremists have been known to carry out such attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank and Israel, including vandalizing olive trees, mosques, churches, and cemeteries. Thousands of these attacks have been reported over the past years, mostly in the West Bank.
Human rights groups say hate crime attacks have been on the rise since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak. Enditem
