by Our Foreign Desk

A SLEEPING Palestinian toddler was burnt to death when two homes were set on fire in a West Bank village early yesterday, apparently by Israeli settlers.

According to the Israeli military, the suspects entered the village of Duma, near the city of Nablus, and set the homes alight.

The culprits left graffiti in Hebrew on the homes, including: “Long live the messiah,” ‘‘revenge” and “price tag,” before fleeing the scene.

Local official Gassan Daghlas said Israeli settlers had broken the window of a house and flung a fire bomb inside, “causing a quick and huge fire.”

The dead boy was named as 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh. His father Saed, mother Riham and four-year-old brother Ahmad also suffered serious burns in the attack and were taken to Israeli hospitals.

Neighbour Mohammed Ibrahim Dawabsheh said he had seen the mother running out of the house on fire and had covered her with a sheet to try to extinguish the flames.

Fellow neighbour Mohammed Dawabsheh said he had tried to enter the blazing home to save the child but the flames were too strong.

At Tel Hashomer hospital, near Tel Aviv, spokeswoman Lee Gat said Ms Dawabsheh had life-threatening burns covering 90 per cent of her body, while her son Ahmad had burns on 60 per cent of his.

One person was slightly injured in the other house.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called the incident a “war crime.”

Although Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to it as a “terror attack,” Palestinian official Saeb Erekat blamed Israel for the boy’s death, branding it a “brutal assassination.”

He said: “This is a direct consequence of decades of impunity given by the Israeli government to settler terrorism.

“This is the consequence of a culture of hate funded and incentivised by the Israeli government and the impunity granted by the international community.”

Following the attack, some 2,000 protesters at a previously planned demonstration in the West Bank city of Hebron threw stones at Israeli security forces, who fired into the crowd, hitting one person.

So-called “price tag” attacks on innocent Palestinians, carried out in revenge for real or imagined agression against settlers, have become a feature of the occupation.