Israel arrests two Palestinian teens in murder of settler family in Itamar

Ma'an – Two Palestinians have been arrested in connection with the murder last month of a young Israeli settler family in the West Bank, Israel's internal security agency Shin Bet said Sunday.

In a briefing document obtained by AFP, the agency said the men had confessed to the murder of five members of the Fogel family, from the northern West Bank settlement of Itamar. The document said the two had staged a reconstruction of the slaying.

Israel's daily newspaper Haaretz named the two as students Amjad Awad, 19, and Hakim Awad 18, noting they were unrelated to each other, but were both members of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

The Israeli military confirmed the arrests, with Colonel Nimrod Aloni, commander of the Shomron Brigade in the northern area of the occupied West Bank telling a briefing: "We can say that the murderers are in our hands."

The Shin Bet and Israeli military said the two suspects are from the West Bank village of Awarta, the Palestinian village closest to the Itamar settlement, and the central focus of the investigation into the murders.

Investigation procedures sparked concern in the international and human rights communities, with several military curfews imposed on the village, mass sweeps of residents, home-to-home searches and forcible detentions of elderly women and children.

Village leaders called the tactics "collective punishment," and called for international observers to come to the area and ensure no further rights abuses. Rights groups noted that none of the residents detained, questioned and compelled to give fingerprints and DNA samples were given access to a lawyer, some - reports said - were held for days and weeks without charge, and accusations were made that some of the detainees had been badly beaten in Israeli custody.

The murders, which saw three children and their parents brutally stabbed in their beds, and survived by three children, sent Israeli police on high alert and sparked revenge attacks by West Bank settlers.

Dozens of acts of settler harassment, violence and vandalism were reported in the wake of the murders, which were condemned by the Palestinian leadership, and went unclaimed by any Palestinian faction. [In the weeks prior to the murder four teens from the area had been killed by Israelis.]