Israel indicts Jewish extremists in deadly arson attack

An Israeli court charged two Jewish extremists on Sunday over alleged involvement in murder of three Palestinians in the Palestinian village of Duma in July, the Walla!

Amiram Ben-Uliel, a 21-year-old from a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, was charged with three counts of racially motivated murder at Lod court near Tel Aviv.

Amid accusations that Israel had harvested organs from the bodies of Palestinians killed while suspected of carrying out attacks on Israelis, Tamimi said: “Autopsies showed that the Israeli occupation hasn’t operated on the bodies or stolen any organs”.

The July 31 fire in the West Bank town of Duma killed 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh; his parents later succumbed to their wounds. Five-year-old Ahmed, Ali’s brother, remains hospitalized in Israel and faces a long rehabilitation. A minor has also been indicted on conspiracy charges, police added.

Palestinian leaders say a younger generation sees no hope for the future living under Israeli security restrictions and with a stifled economy. A few hours later, also in Hebron, the military said another soldier was shot and wounded.

Israel’s Shin Bet security service said the suspects had admitted to the attack, part of what it described as a series of attacks over the years by right-wing extremists. Ben-Oliel’s parents firmly declared they were certain their son’s innocence would be established and asked the judges to take into account that the defendants were subjected to severe torture during their weeks of interrogation in prison.

Palestinian sources said the Israelis were still holding a total of 17 bodies, including at least 15 of Palestinians from East Jerusalem.

He then directed his attention to Saed and Reham Dawabsheh’s house and threw two Molotov cocktails inside the bedroom window, where the family of four were all sleeping and he then fled the scene, the indictment said.

A “price tag” attack is a term used by radical Israeli settlers to denote reprisal against Palestinians in response to moves by the Israeli government to evacuate illegal West Bank outposts, according to officials.

However, a lawyer for one of the suspects said his client had been forced to give a confession after being subject to sleep deprivation and tied upside down by his feet.