http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/shock-anger-as-arsonists/1503100.html?cid=TWTCNA&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
An arson attack targeting first-grade classrooms at a Jewish-Arab school sparked a wave of condemnation on Sunday (Nov 30), as months of racial tensions in Jerusalem showed little sign of abating.
The attack, apparently by Jewish extremists, occurred on Saturday evening at the Hand-in-Hand bilingual school, a rare symbol of coexistence in a city fraught by growing friction between Jews and Palestinians from annexed east Jerusalem.
Scrawled on the walls were slogans in Hebrew reading "Death to Arabs" and "There's no coexistence with cancer," police said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the attack and pledged to act "forcefully" to return "the rule of law" across all parts of the city.
Justice Minister Tzipi Livni pledged a "zero tolerance" approach to anyone behind such acts.
"I will work determinedly against everyone who acts against the law and expresses through violence the racist demon which has emerged in Israeli society - whether it is through hateful graffiti, arson or other forms of violence," she told reporters at the school.
Headmistress Nadia Knane said one of the first-grade classrooms had been badly damaged by the fire, and that the attackers had tried to set alight another classroom. The assailants had piled up textbooks and set them on fire.
"The school had been targeted several times in recent months but every other time was outside the school. This is the first time it was inside," the headmistress said.
On Sunday, scores of people gathered in support of the school and its pupils and teachers. They carried placards in Hebrew, Arabic and English reading: "Spread the light - together against terror" and "Light in a place of terrorism".
Another giant spray-painted banner in Hebrew and Arabic read: "We will continue together, without fear."
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