Israel files murder charges against two Jews for arson attack

Israeli prosecutors filed murder charges on Sunday (January 3) against a man and a minor, both Jews, for a July 31 arson in the occupied West Bank that killed three members of a Palestinian family and helped fuel the fiercest eruption of street violence in years.

The attack in Duma village and ensuing, secretive Israeli investigation also laid bare fissures in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government, where one ultra-nationalist partner voiced misgivings at the handling of Jewish suspects.

Amiram Ben-Oliel, described by Israeli media as a 21-year-old Jewish radical from Jerusalem, was charged with racially-motivated murder at Lod court near Tel Aviv. A second, underaged defendant, whose name was not released for publication, was charged as Ben-Oliel’s accessory in the Duma arson, which killed 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh and his parents, Saad and Riham.

“In the Duma attack, three innocent human beings were murdered, parents and their baby, and another toddler son who was seriously wounded. In addition, charges were made today against two other members of this group, also for severe acts driven by a racist nationalistic motive. Since the acts are serious and we believe they are very dangerous, we requested their arrest until the end of procedures,” prosecutor Rachel Avisar Abeles told reporters outside the courtroom.

Lawyers for the Duma defendants said they had given false confessions under torture in close-door interrogations – an allegation denied by Netanyahu and the Shin Bet security agency.

“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.

Thirteen other Israeli Jews, most of them minors, were also indicted for a slew of hate crimes including an assault on a Palestinian, vandalism of Arab property and a church torching.

Referred to in Israel as “price-tag attacks”, such offences have usually been carried out covertly as avowed reprisals for Palestinian violence against Israelis or Netanyahu government curbs on unauthorised Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

Saad Dawabsheh’s brother, Naser, voiced hope that the Duma defendants would receive the maximum penalty, though he was sceptical of Israel’s seriousness in prosecuting the case.

“We feel angry and sorry for the crime that took place and that it has been six months and the occupation is still delayed in bringing those murderers to justice. We want a real judgement for those murders and to put them (the perpetrators) in jail for a long time, to demolish their homes and to deal with them like they (Israeli authorities) are dealing with the Palestinians. The Israeli court is now being tested, we want the Israeli justice to be real this time and to make it fair for Palestinians even if it’s only this time,” he told Reuters outside Tel Hashomer hospital near Tel Aviv, where 4-year-old Ahmed, the eldest son of Riham and Saad and only survivor of the attack, was recovering from his serious wounds.

Netanyau said the indictments demonstrated the rule of law in Israel, telling his cabinet in broadcast remarks: “We oppose murder of all kinds. We oppose violence of all kinds. We oppose violation of the country’s laws anywhere. We are a country of (the rule of) law and we will implement the law in all parts of the state of Israel, and on all its citizens.”

The time it has taken Israel to crack down on the Jewish militants, compared to the speedy and sometimes lethal response by state security forces to similar actions by Arabs, has angered Palestinians, contributing to a wave of stabbing, car-rammings, and shooting attacks against Israelis since Oct. 1.

Twenty-one Israelis and a U.S. citizen have died in the latest bloodshed – a number that could rise if police deem a Tel Aviv shooting rampage that killed two people on Friday (January 3) as a pro-Palestinian attack. The gunman, an Israeli Arab, is at large.

Israeli forces or armed civilians have killed at least 132 Palestinians, 82 of whom authorities described as assailants. Most of the others were killed in clashes with security forces.

Israeli officials said their investigation into the attacks by far-right Jews were hampered by the suspects’ operating in small, tight-knit cells and eluding of electronic surveillance.

A police statement said Sunday’s indictments were the fruit of “the investment of many resources including technological means, initiative, innovation and creativity”.