JERUSALEM (JTA) — “Several Jewish suspects” have been arrested in connection with the murder of a Palestinian teen, Israel’s Shin Bet security service said.
The arrests in the July 2 abduction and murder of Muhammad Abu Khieder in eastern Jerusalem came Sunday morning, according to a Shin Bet statement.
The suspects are being questioned, according to the statement, which added, “All other details regarding the investigation are under a judicial gag order.”
One of the suspects confessed and implicated other suspects, who also confessed under Shin Bet interrogation, the Israeli media reported.
Khieder was buried Friday afternoon following Ramadan prayers. He was burned alive, Palestinian Authority Attorney General Mohammed Al-A’wewy told the official Palestinian Wafa news agency, in an attack that took place hours after the burial of three kidnapped Israeli teens whose bodies were found in a shallow grave in a field near Hebron.
“This was a shocking and unacceptable act which any sane person, certainly in a strong and democratic country such as the State of Israel, must strongly condemn,” Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch said.
On Saturday, Israeli soldiers arrested a third man, Husam Dofsh, believed to be connected to the June 12 kidnapping and murder of the Israelis. Dofsh, who was missing from his Hebron home since the abduction, is suspected of assisting the killers of Gilad Shaar and Naftali Fraenkel, both 16, and Eyal Yifrach, 19.
Two West Bank Palestinians affiliated with Hamas, Amer Abu Aysha and Marwan Kawasme, had been identified previously by the Shin Bet and the Israeli military as the alleged abductors of the teens. The suspects, who live in Hebron, have been missing since the Israeli teens were kidnapped.
