Widespread violence against Arabs accompanied the funeral rites Tuesday for Ronen Karamani and Lior Tubol, two Jewish youths murdered Saturday night north of the capital.
A 25-year-old Arab woman was killed and some 60 Arabs have been reported injured in the latest spate of Jewish rioting against Arabs that was prompted by the murders. Arab drivers have reportedly been pulled from their cars and badly beaten, and their cars overturned and burned.
Police continued to comb the area for clues where the bodies of Karamani and Tubol were found, but no progress was reported so far toward solving the crime.
Police believe the murders of the two youths were committed by three or more people who were familiar with the terrain and had planned the crime long in advance, though the two youths became the victims by sheer chance.
The police base their theory on the fact that the youths were found handcuffed with plastic cuffs, such as are used by security forces in the territories. That means that the killers equipped themselves to kidnap their victims, which is evidence of advance planning, the police said.
In Tuesday’s violence, one Arab man was hurt seriously when he, his wife and two children were attacked in their car on the Hebron Road in southern Jerusalem. Their car was torched.
Two of those beaten in the riots were said to be Pakistani citizens in a car with blue West Bank license plates.
On Monday night, Aziza Jaber of Hebron died after being shot in the head while driving past the Jewish township of Kiryat Arba. Her cousin, Najeh Jaber, who was driving, was wounded in the back.
Doctors quoted Najeh Jaber as saying the car was fired on by Kiryat Arba residents out for revenge. Local Jews disputed this.
The Jewish population seems inflamed by the brutal slayings of Karamani, 18, and Tubol, 17, whose mutilated bodies were discovered Monday afternoon in a ravine between the northern Jerusalem suburb of Ramot and Beit Hanina, an Arab neighborhood.
They had been bludgeoned and stabbed numerous times while handcuffed, with clothes stuffed in their mouths.
A crowd of thousands attended their funeral, held at the Sanhedria parlor in northern Jerusalem, near the road to Ramot. The crowd followed the two biers toward the Har Hamenuhot cemetery, at the western approaches to the city.
But the ceremony was disturbed throughout by hecklers shouting down Minister of Religious Affairs Avner Shaki, who represented the government at the funeral.
During his eulogy, in which he assured that the government would not rest until it found the murderers, Shaki was jeered with chants of “death to the Arabs.”
EGGED ON BY KAHANE SUPPORTERS
The chant was taken up by hundreds of persons, egged on by followers of Rabbi Meir Kahane’s Kach movement, and Shaki was forced to cut short his address.
The crowd also was oblivious to urgent appeals made by the father of Karamani and from the two chief rabbis, asking mourners to desist from acts of indiscriminate revenge against Arabs.
As the cortege made its way to the cemetery, it happened upon a van transporting four Arab men. Members of the crowd immediately set upon the car. The men were taken out and beaten and the car turned over and smashed.
Eventually, police managed to wade into the fracas and rescue the victims.
Further violence erupted when the cortege passed two gas stations at the entrance to the city. Young men in the crowd stopped to beat Arab-looking men and pound on their cars.
Tempers abated at the funeral, however, particularly with no Arabs in sight.
Even before the funeral, Jewish crowds had surged into road junctions looking for Arab-owned cars to damage.
Police had posted signs on roads entering Jerusalem from the West Bank advising Arab motorists to detour.
In the Arab village of Beit Safafa, where Jews and Arabs stoned each other Monday night, Arabs stayed indoors Tuesday and did not go to work.
EQUIPPED WITH RIOT GEAR
Border police equipped with riot gear were posted at the junctions of West and East Jerusalem.
Right-wing militants hold the Palestinian leadership directly responsible for the murders and have urged their arrest and deportation.
The Knesset held a special recess debate earlier Tuesday on the killings, which followed a debate on the situation in the Persian Gulf.
Justice Minister Dan Meridor of Likud added his voice to those calling for calm, seeking to assure the public that the youths’ murderers would be brought to justice.
Members from left to right had called for Arab condemnation of the youths’ murders.
Shevach Weiss of Labor called on the Palestinian leadership to “take responsibility for events such as this,” and put an end to them.
Uzi Landau of Likud said that among those responsible for the Jewish youths’ murders were the leaders of the intifada.
He named the most senior Palestinian leaders in the Jerusalem area, Faisal Husseini, Radwan Abu-Ayyash and Sari Nusseibeh, and urged they be jailed or deported.
But even as Landau spoke, the Palestinian leadership issued a statement of “sorrow and deep pain over the death of innocent people on both sides.”
The Palestinians blamed the “government’s oppressive policy in the territories” for the deteriorating situation.
In Hebron, meanwhile, the Arab population declared a general strike in protest against the killing of Aziza Jaber.
Some Jews of Kiryat Arab, which overlooks Hebron, said they saw a passing car and conjectured that the bullets had come from there. She may have been killed in a blood feud or as a suspected collaborator, Jews said.
Police were investigating all possibilities.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
