Israel charges 2 Jewish extremists in arson attack on Bedouin tent

Two Israeli youths, described by authorities as "Jewish terrorists," were charged on Monday with an arson attack on a Bedouin tent in the West Bank in August.

According to the indictment, the two torched a tent in the Ein Samia area, northeast of Ramallah, on Aug. 13. The tent, with mattresses, animal feed and bicycles, was burned to the ground, but no one was hurt.

The suspects also sprayed at the scene Hebrew graffiti reading "administrators of revenge," an apparent reference to a string of administrative detentions of ultranationalist activists by Israeli authorities.

Israel's Shin Bet security service named one of the suspects as Avi Gafni, a 19-year-old "violent 'hilltop' activist and a member of a Jewish terror group."

"Hilltop youth" is a term used to describe hardline nationalistic youngsters who establish illegal outposts in the West Bank.

Gafni had been under restriction orders banning him from entering the West Bank on three different occasions, "in light of information that pointed to his involvement in, and carrying out of, a number of incidents of arson against property and religious sites of Palestinians," the Shin Bet said in a statement.

The second suspect wasn't identified as he is a minor, said the Shin Bet.

The attack followed a surging wave of nationalist attacks by Jewish extremists against Palestinians, churches, mosques and other holy sites, with only handful of indictments handed down over the past years.

Overnight, Riham Dawabsheh, who lost her 18-month-old son and her husband in an arson attack on their West Bank home on July 31, died from her wounds at an Israeli hospital.

Dawabsheh was critically injured when firebombs were hurled at the Dawabsheh family home in the Palestinian village of Duma in the West Bank.

Her four-year-old son, Ahmed, was the only survivor. He is being treated for burns over 60 percent of his body. Endit