WEST BANK: Israeli forces said Sunday they caught four Palestinian men suspected of firing at a car full of students at a West Bank settlement outpost, an attack that killed one man and wounded two others.
“The Four Terrorists who carried out the shooting attack last Thursday were caught,” it said in a statement.
“The suspects were transferred to the security forces for further investigation and the weapon of the suspect who carried out the shooting was captured.”
The captives are suspected of firing a hail of at least ten bullets that killed Yehuda Dimentman, 25, and injured two fellow students as they drove out of Homesh, an illegal outpost in the northern West Bank, on Thursday evening.
The army said the suspects were caught in the village of Silat al-Harithiyah, in the Jenin governorate in the northern West Bank.
Dimentman was married and a young father studying at a yeshiva operating in Homesh, which had been evacuated by Israeli forces in 2005 but where settlers nevertheless continued to operate a religious school. About 2,000 people attended his funeral.
“We closed off the building in which they were found,” army spokesman Brigadier General Ran Kochav told Israeli public radio.
“I believe we are talking about a terrorist organisation,” Kochav said, although he did not specify a group.
Multiple Palestinian groups had praised the attack, though none claimed responsibility.
The arrests follow a tense weekend. On Saturday, Israeli border police said they arrested a 65-year-old Palestinian woman in Hebron after she allegedly stabbed an Israeli settler, injuring him.
On Friday, settlers raided the northern West Bank village of Burqah, near the site of the fatal ambush. An AFP reporter observed Israeli assailants hurling stones through the windows of homes and firing weapons.
Further south in the village of Qaryout, a Palestinian man was hospitalised after settlers assaulted him at home, Palestinian official news agency Wafa reported. Israeli police said they were investigating the incident.
Israel captured the West Bank in 1967 from Jordan. Nearly 500,000 Israelis have moved into settlements in the territory, which the international community regards as illegal.
