Israeli pair indicted in fire that killed 3

JERUSALEM (AP) – A Palestinian stabbed an Israeli woman in Jerusalem before being shot and wounded on Monday, police said, the latest in a series of attacks in recent months. “The people who came to set fire to a house with people inside knew they were not going to commit an arson attack or an attempted murder – they were there to commit murder”.

Since October 1, lone Palestinian assailants killed 23 Israelis, including soldiers and civilians.

The Israeli military says forces are demolishing and sealing off the Jerusalem homes of two Palestinians involved in deadly attacks against Israelis in the city previous year. That figure does not include two Israelis killed Friday, in a shooting attack on a Tel Aviv restaurant. Referred to in Israel as “price-tag attacks”, such offences have usually been carried out in what the attackers say are reprisals for Palestinian violence against Israelis or government curbs on unauthorised building in the West Bank. The indictment named Amiram Ben-Uliel, 21, as the main suspect in the attack.

Although both attackers were shot and killed on the spot, the decision to demolish their homes was approved by Israel’s High Court of Justice in December, Israeli news outlets report.

Nasser Dawabsheh, Saad’s brother, said the indictments were not enough.

This view was also taken by defence lawyers for the pair who said they had given false confessions under torture in closed-door interrogations, an allegation denied by Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Shin Bet.

Attorneys for the suspects said the authorities did not have enough evidence to convict their clients and accused the security establishment of using brutal and unorthodox investigation methods, including torturing the suspects and holding them for days without allowing them to meet with their legal counsels.

At least 178 Palestinians were killed and 16,200 others were injured by Israeli forces in 2015, according to official figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

Security forces launched a manhunt shortly after initial distress calls and apprehended a suspect who fits the description given by eyewitnesses. She was moderately wounded and troops were searching for the shooter.

“It is now clear that these acts were perpetrated by a fringe group of anarchists bent on destroying the state of Israel and the freedom and justice that it represents”, it said in a statement.

“I don’t have any other place to live”, Allyan’s father Mohammed told AFP.