Shortly after the victim’s body was found in an orchard near Gan Yavneh, just outside Ashdod, on May 11, an IDF force arrested his murderers: two 22-year-old Arabs from the north Samaria-area village of Arana. A third accomplice has not yet been caught.
The two confessed that they crossed illegally into pre-1967 Israel for the purpose of a robbery, but that in the course of robbing the driver, they decided to murder him as well. One of the terrorists explained that this was in revenge for the killing of his cousin – an Islamic Jihad terrorist who had been involved in arranging suicide attacks and was killed when the IDF tried to arrest him.
One of the arrested murderers was also found to have been involved in several terrorist shootings at Israeli targets in the past. He further confessed that he and his fellow terrorists planned to kidnap a Jew to use as a hostage in the event that one of them would be arrested. In addition, he said he planned other attacks, including the murder or abduction of a soldier, placing bombs along IDF routes, manufacturing bombs, and more.
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