Jerusalem police said today that a 19-year old girl from Nablus and two 22-year-old Israeli Arab seniors at the Hebrew University have confessed to planting the explosives which blasted the Hebrew University library cafeteria March 6, injuring 28 students. All three come from middle class Arab families which have been friendly toward Israel. The girl was identified as Maryam Shakshir, daughter of the representative of an Israeli insurance firm in Nablus, the largest West Bank town. The two youths were identified as Farhi Khalil and Adnan Khlekhl, both from villages in Upper Galilee and both liberal arts students at the University. Young Khalil’s father is a retired Israeli policeman. The Khlekhl family had a long record of cooperation with the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Fund prior to Israel’s independence and took shelter in a nearby Jewish settlement during the 1948 war because they thought they would be killed by Arab invaders, police said.
The three who confessed to the Hebrew University bombing were among more than 200 Arabs arrested in recent weeks on suspicion of terrorist acts. According to Jerusalem police superintendent David Barelli, they belong to three cells of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine which have been involved in internal feuding. Mr. Barelli declined to say how the explosives were planted at the cafeteria. However, he disclosed a long list of terrorist acts in the Jerusalem area dating back to last November in which he said the three Popular Front cells were involved. These included the hurling of two grenades at Israel Government offices in East Jerusalem several weeks ago; a grenade planting in an East Jerusalem television shop jointly owned by Jews and Arabs; a grenade planting near the Jerusalem and Tel Aviv railroad lines; and an attempt to set fire to three Arab shops in East Jerusalem whose owners failed to observe a strike on Balfour Day last November. Mr. Barelli said police had found large caches of weapons and explosives in several Jerusalem area houses. He said they included Russian-made rifles, Chinese-made revolvers, a British-made stun-gun and a bren-light machinegun, automatic timing pencils, grenades and button mines.
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.
