Arrest 10 West Bank Arabs Allegedly Responsible for Slaying of Six Yeshiva Students in Hebron in May

— Security sources announced today the arrests of 10 West Bank Arabs allegedly responsible for the ambush slaying of six yeshiva students in Hebron last May Z. According to an army spokesman, four of the suspects belong to the EI Fatah cell which planned and carried out the killings and six are members of another cell that provided them with material assistance and transportation.

Three of the terrorists accused of the actual killings are residents of the Hebron area and one lives in the Jenin region. They reportedly confessed and said they acted on the direct orders of Abu Jihad, deputy to Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasir Arafat. One of the men arrested reportedly confessed to the murders of Hadassah and Uriel Barak whose bodies were found in a parked car near Jerusalem last March.

DETAILS OF THE MANHUNT

Today’s announcement gave details of the manhunt that led to the apprehension of the suspects. The search began almost immediately after the killings more than three months ago and ranged throughout the West Bank. Three weeks ago. security forces arrested a young resident of Bani-Nayim village for possession of arms and ammunition.

Under interrogation he admitted membership in El Fatah and provided information as to the identity of the Hebron terrorists. As a result, security forces closed the Jordan River bridges to young Arab makes.

The terrorists apparently aware that the net was tightening, attempted to cross the Jordan away from the bridges and were captured by a military patrol several days ago. The terrorists were described as young men of above average educational background, a number of them holding academic degrees.

BACKGROUND OF TERRORIST LEADERS

The leader of the four man cell that set up the Hebron ambush was identified as Yasser Hussein Mohammad Zeidat, 30, a resident of the Bani-Nayim village in the Hebron area. He joined the Fatah terror organization in the early 1970s. In April, 1977, after having participated in firing Katyusha rockets toward Kiryat Arab, he escaped to Jordan. He then went to Lebanon where he trained new recruits arriving from the territories.

Zeidat’s deputy was Adnan Jaber, 30, a resident of the village of Taysir, in the Jenin area. He has been with the Fatah for the past 11 years. He spent several months of training in the Soviet Union. The third member of the cell was Taysir Abu-Sneina, 28, a resident of Hebron. He joined the Fatah two years ago. He is a graduate of Amman University and served as a mathematics teacher in a Hebron school.

The fourth member, who confessed to the killing of the Barak couple, was Mohammad Shubaki, 33, a resident of Edna, a village in the Hebron regions A farmer, he joined the unit by a directive of the Fatah headquarters in Beirut and trained with them in the Hebron mountain region.

The support unit was headed by Omma Haroub, a resident of Beit Jalla village near Bethlehem, who is a graduate of Beirut University and was employed as a chemist in on East Jerusalem blood bank. He joined El Fatah two years ago, Hebron allegedly admitted driving the killers before and after the Hebron ambush and providing them with material to prepare explosives.

DENY CONNECTION WITH ATTACKS ON MAYORS

The terrorists also led their captors to an ammunition cache where explosives were found similar to those used in the June 2 bomb attacks on three West Bank Arab mayors, two of whom were permanently crippled. The perpetrators of the Hebron attack denied any connection with the attacks on the mayors. That act has been widely attributed to Jewish extremists seeking vengeance for the Hebron killings. To date, no arrests have been made, but security sources insist that the investigation is continuing at full pace.

The arrests of the alleged Hebron killers was greeted wish relation by residents of Kiryat Arab, the Orthodox township adjacent to Hebron where most of the ambush victims had lived. Leaders of the community demanded the death penalty for the terrorists and chided the government for its failure so for to establish a Jewish community in Hebron.

HOMES OF TERRORISTS DEMOLISHED

Meanwhile, Israeli army sappers demolished the homes of seven suspects today in various West Bank villages. Four of them belonged to the terrorists arrested for the Hebron killings. The others were the homes of terrorists arrested over the weekend for allegedly planning to take hostages and plant bombs during the Rosh Hashanah holiday. The demolitions were carried out in the villages of Edna and Bani-Nayim near Hebron, Wodi Foukin near Bethlehem, Taysir near Jenin, Betha near Nablus, Marj Naje in the Jordan Valley, and in the Jenin refugee camp.