Three Palestinian cars were torched and a Palestinian house was defaced in the West Bank, Israeli police have said, and evidence at the scene suggested the involvement of Jewish extremists

The words “price tag” were spray-painted on the house in Beit Ummar, a town near the West Bank city of Hebron, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. The phrase refers to a Jewish settler tactic of attacking Palestinian targets to protest government activities against settlements. There has been a surge in violence in recent months against Palestinian property in the West Bank and in Israel, with mosques attacked, Arab cemeteries desecrated and hundreds of olive trees uprooted. Rosenfeld said that a 21-year-old Jewish man has been arrested in connection with some of the earlier attacks against Palestinians in the Jerusalem area.