Israeli soldier arrested for suspected price tag attacks

An Israeli soldier was arrested on suspicion of committing acts of vandalism against Arabs, also known as Price Tag attacks, the Ynet news website reported on Wednesday. The soldier, who is serving in an infantry unit, is suspected of puncturing tires of a police car and spraying "Death to Arabs" and "Muhammad is a pig" on buses in the West Bank. The soldier's brother, who was also arrested, is a 30-year-old Israeli living in Petah Tikva, close to Tel Aviv. According to the report, the military police has found incriminating footage of the two on one of the suspects' mobile phone. The two suspects' detention was extended until Thursday. The soldier claims he was not involved in the incidents and, according to his attorney, has an alibi. Price Tag attacks are acts of vandalism and random violence mainly targeting Palestinians as well as the Israeli security forces and Muslim and Christian holy sites, perpetrated by far- right Jewish activists. Last week, anonymous perpetrators set ablaze a house in the Palestinian village of Sinjil near Ramallah, sending five Palestinian family members to hospital for smoke inhalation. A spray painting on the house read "Regards from Eden revenge," alluding to an attack in which a 16 year-old Palestinian stabbed to death an Israeli soldier on a bus in the northern city of Afula. Several days earlier, vandals spray-painted tombstones in a Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem. Some Islamists filed a complaint to the police over the incident, which included spray paintings reading "death to Arabs" and "revenge." On Sunday, Israeli police arrested two Jewish youths suspected of vandalizing a French Monastery in Jerusalem.