Death threats were found on Tuesday scrawled on the walls of a Jerusalem apartment building where a prominent Peace Now activist makes her home. Hagit Ofran, who heads the organization's Settlement Watch project, found graffiti messages such as "Ofran, Rabin is waiting for you" and "Hagit Ofran, R.I.P." alongside swastikas in the hallway outside her home on Tuesday morning. A neighbor's car, which bore a Peace Now sticker, was also vandalized. The incident was the third of its kind in the past week against Peace Now, and is believed to be a "price-tag" operation. "Price tag" is the term generally used to refer to acts of violence and vandalism committed by right-wing extremists against Palestinian targets in the West Bank. In recent weeks, however, price-tag incidents have moved inside the Green Line, with inflammatory messages spray-painted on Muslim sites such as mosques and cemeteries. Some 200 left-wing activists demonstrated outside the Prime Minister's Residence in Jerusalem on Tuesday in protest against the rising number of threats and acts of vandalism toward people associated with the Left, and against legislative initiatives currently moving through the Knesset which would limit the activities of leftist organizations. "On the eve of the anniversary of [Yitzhak] Rabin's assassination, we came to sound the alarm about the wave of violence and the next political murder," Peace Now General Director Yariv Oppenheimer said. Peace Now's offices in Jerusalem were sprayed with similar graffiti twice earlier this week, and a bomb threat was also made against the building. A coalition of 18 Israeli civil society organizations, including B'Tselem, Rabbis for Human Rights and Yesh Din, also released a statement condemning the threats and calling on the authorities to protect citizens in the wake of the incident. "These acts are intended to intimidate us all and silence our voices," said the statement, which also stated that the perpetrators of such incidents continued to be "encouraged by the inaction of the law enforcement authorities." Jerusalem police say they are taking the incident very seriously. They have set up a joint team with the Jewish Department at the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) to investigate. No arrests have yet been made in connection to any of the incidents.
Prominent peace activist gets death threats
Hagit Ofran, head of Peace Now's Settlement Watch project, woke up on Tuesday morning to find death threats and swastikas spray-painted outside her apartment in Jerusalem.
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