Three weeks after the militantly anti-Arab Kach organization was declared illegal, Israeli authorities have captured the last of the group’s leaders still at large.
Kach leader Baruch Marzel, who was already on the run two weeks before his far-right movement was declared illegal March 13, was caught by police in the early hours of Sunday morning.
On Feb. 27, two days after the massacre of at least 29 Palestinians at a Hebron mosque, the Israeli government issued administrative detention orders against five prominent Kach activists, including Marzel.
The order allows authorities to keep Marzel in custody for three months without trial. Similar orders have already been issued against seven other right-wing militants.
Marzel had taken refuge in the West Bank settlement of Pnei Hever. Police found him at the home of a man previously accused of shooting to death a captured Palestinian.
Marzel, who has repeatedly eluded the police, was caught in the home of Yoram Skolnick. According to the police, Marzel was asleep when the authorities captured him.
Skolnick has been accused of shooting at point-blank range a Palestinian who had been captured and was being held in a settlement just south of Hebron until the arrival of Israeli security authorities. The Palestinian was bound at the time he was shot.
Skolnick wife, Sigalit, told Israel Radio that she knew nothing of Marzel’s presence in her home. In her husband’s absence, she said, she had been away from home and was spending the Passover holiday with her in-laws.
In Jerusalem, a close associate of Marzel, Tiran Pollak, has begun serving a six-month prison sentence. Pollak had been found guilty in Magistrates Court of creating a disturbance during a demonstration three years ago.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
