Several alleged Jewish extremists were arrested Thursday in Israel in conncetion with the firebombing of a Palestinian home in the West Bank in which a toddler and his parents were killed last July.
"We have confirmed that a number of suspects have been arrested in connection with the incident that took place in Duma," Israeli Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP.
The Shin Bet domestic security agency said arrests had been made in recent days of young men "suspected of belonging to a Jewish terror organization and carrying out terror attacks". It said in a statement that the detainees were being questioned over the 31 July firebombing in the West Bank village of Duma.
Eighteen-month-old Ali Saad Dawabsha and his parents were killed in the firebombing. The couple's four-year-old son was the sole survivor from the immediate family.
A Star of David and the words "revenge" and "long live the Messiah" were spray-painted on a wall near the family's small house.
The attack led to widespread condemnation globally and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu labelled it "terrorism."
However, Israel has been criticized for the lack of progress in the investigation of the crimes. Nickolay Mladenov, UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, said on Wednesday that the lack of charges was troubling. "Four months have passed since the arson attack against the Dawabsha family," he said in a statement. "I am concerned by the slow progress and call on the Israeli authorities to move swiftly in bringing the perpetrators of this terrible crime to justice."
Arsonist of Jewish-Arab school sentenced to three years in jail
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, a court in Jerusalem sentenced Yitzhak Gabai, 24, who had set fire to the Jewish-Arab school in Jerusalem in November 2014 alongside two others, to three years in prison.
The Jerusalem District Court sentenced Gabai to two years in prison for the arson, ten months for posting incitement on Facebook, and two more months for the possession of a knife. It ordered him to pay the school tens of thousands of shekels in compensation.
"The attacks were committed while the area was quite literally ablaze, in an effort to make headlines," Judge Zvi Segal wrote in his verdict. "In addition to violating the values of keeping the peace and public safety, the arson reflects a violation of the values of human dignity, equality and tolerance. The arson hurt the general public's sense of security. The defendant's actions were done at a sensitive and explosive time, in the wake of terror attacks committed in the city of Jerusalem."
