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BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Settlers set fire to a Palestinian home in the Ramallah village of Sinjil overnight Wednesday, in an apparent revenge attack following the killing of an Israeli soldier, PA security sources said.

The attackers torched the front of the Dar Khalil home in Sinjil and spray-painted the words "Regards from Eden, Revenge!" in Hebrew in blue on a wall outside the house.

"I woke up at 2 a.m., and four or five people came out of a white car and started breaking windows, then poured gasoline, then threw fire into the house," mother-of-five Ruweida Dar Khalil told AFP.

"My kids were sleeping. I was scared to death. My kids almost died. I couldn't even touch the doorknob it was so hot."

Dar Khalil said the children, the eldest aged seven, were returned home after being taken to hospital.

"I need protection," she said. "I'm scared to sleep inside my home."

An Israeli police spokesman said an investigation had been opened.

Later on Thursday, racist slogans including "death to Arabs" were discovered spray-painted on a fence in Nazareth Ilit, the northern Israeli city where Atias grew up and was buried.

And in Jerusalem, dozens of Jews were holding a demonstration against the killing, calling for "death to the terrorists" and "death to Arabs," an AFP correspondent said.

Settler attacks against Palestinians and their property are routine and rarely prosecuted by Israeli authorities.

AFP contributed to this report

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by ISABEL KERSHNER for New York

Assailants burned the entrance of a Palestinian family’s home in the West Bank village of Sinjil early Thursday. Hebrew graffiti sprayed on a stone wall outside suggested that the arson was an act of revenge by Jewish extremists for the fatal stabbing of an Israeli soldier by a Palestinian teenager the day before. The graffiti read “Regards from Eden, revenge!” apparently a reference to Eden Atias, the soldier who was stabbed on a bus in northern Israel. The house, belonging to the Dar Khalil family, which has no known connection with the stabbing, was set on fire as the parents and five children slept inside. They escaped without serious injury. The Israeli police said an investigation was underway. Also Thursday, Israeli warplanes attacked two concealed rocket launchers in northern Gaza after two rockets fired from Gaza landed in southern Israel, according to the military. No injuries were reported on either side.