Two Israelis indicted over deadly attack on Palestinian family

Palestinians brandishing knives attacked Israeli soldiers in two separate incidents in the West Bank on Thursday night before forces opened fire killing three assailants, the military said, in the latest violence in nearly four months of near daily Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians and soldiers.

Yinon Reuveni, 20, and another minor were charged for other violence against Palestinians, including setting fires to two of the Holy Land’s most famous churches – the Dormition Abbey, a Benedictine monastery located just outside Jerusalem’s Old City, and the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fish on the shores of the Sea of Galilee.

A 17-year-old, who remained unnamed under a gag order, was charged with being an accessory to committing a racially motivated murder.

Police and special forces are still searching for the accused shooter in that attack, Nashat Milhem, an Arab from northern Israel who is considered to be armed and unsafe.

The firebombing, carried out under cover of darkness while the family slept, sparked soul-searching among Israelis rattled by the horrific attack.

The attack was condemned across the Israeli political spectrum, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged “zero tolerance” in the fight to bring the assailants to justice.

Two people were wounded in an attempted stabbing attack in Jerusalem.

A Palestinian man inspects a house that was badly damaged from a suspected attack by Jewish extremists on two houses at Kafr Duma village near the West Bank city of Nablus in this July 31 2015 file picture.

Court officials confirmed there had been indictments but did not provide further details. 21 Israelis have been killed over the same period. According to Israel’s Shin Bet security service, those indicted for the attack had admitted to carrying it out.

The measure, the rights group asserted, “does not punish the dead Palestinians, but rather their families”.

Israeli forces also detained Ihasan Ghazi Hattab, 26, from Tulkarem district, and Bassam Nabil Umran, 19, and Bilal Salim Radwan, 23, from Qalqiliya district, the prisoner’s society said. The so-called “price tag” attacks seek to exact a cost for Israeli steps seen as favoring the Palestinians.

The worldwide community regards all Jewish settlements in the West Bank as illegal but Israel makes a distinction between those it has authorised and those it has not.

“I believe it’s a sad day because we know what the suspects went through in the investigation, all the torture, all the violence”, lawyer Hay Haber told reporters.