Israelis indicted for deadly W.Bank arson attack

Israeli prosecutors brought formal charges Sunday against two Jewish Israelis accused of killing three Palestinians, all members of one family, in an arson attack in July.

The main defendant is Amiram Ben Uliel, 21, from Jerusalem, and another defendant is a minor whose details are not cleared for publication.

A minor who was not named confessed to helping plan the Duma attack, according to Shin Bet, and was charged with providing assistance and conspiracy to commit a crime. 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 a year ago.

The Education Ministry last month rejected an advisory panel’s recommendation to include the book, about a romance between an Israeli woman and a Palestinian man, in the curriculum for advanced literature students.

Abu Jamal was also a cousin of two Palestinians who in November stormed a synagogue in Jerusalem’s Har Nof neighbourhood with meat cleavers and a pistol, killing five Jewish worshippers and a policeman before being shot dead.

The attack in Duma and the ensuing Israeli investigation laid bare fissures in Mr Netanyahu’s coalition government, but today he said the indictments demonstrated the rule of law in Israel.

In the past three months this surge of violence, called a “wave of terror” by Prime Minister Netanyahu, has resulted in the deaths of 21 Israeli citizens and soldiers, not including the recent shooting in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv by an Arab. It said all the suspects were part of a group of extremists that had carried out a series of attacks over the years in a religiously inspired campaign to undermine the government and sow fear among non-Jews. The rest died in clashes with security forces.

Authorities found the words “price tag” on the walls of the Dawabsheh house in the village of Duma, Israeli police said.

Gopstein is the head of the notorious extremist Israeli Jewish group of Lehava, which is responsible for insulting and harassing monks and nuns in the occupied Palestinian holy city.

Ben-Oliel, the indictment asserts, prepared two Molotov cocktails that were later used to attack two of the Dawabsheh family’s homes, along with a lighter, matches, gloves and spray-paint.

The extremists are part of a movement known as the “hilltop youth”, a leaderless group of young people who set up unauthorized outposts, usually clusters of trailers, on West Bank hilltops – land the Palestinians claim for their hoped-for state.

Police said in a statement it had made the investigation and tracking down the attackers a top “national” priority.