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5 Palestinians arrested for murder of Jewish couple in West Bank shooting attack

Xinhua, October 6, 2015 Adjust font size:

Five Palestinians were arrested in connection with the murder of a Jewish couple in a West Bank shooting attack last week, the Israeli security services said on Monday evening.

On Thursday, Eitam and Na'ama Henkin, a Jewish couple in their 30s, were killed in a shooting attack in the West Bank.

The Shin Bet Security Agency said that after gathering intelligence and retrieving a pistol from the scene of the attack, they managed to reach the perpetrators in the West Bank city of Nablus over the weekend.

The Shin Bet said the members of the cell admitted to their involvement in the attack.

"The cell, affiliated with Hamas in Nablus, numbered five terrorists, each of which had a defined role: one checked the route, three terrorists were in the attacking vehicle," the agency said.

Another suspect, the cell commander, was not present at the time of the attack. Several other Palestinians from Nablus were also arrested in suspicion of aiding the militants.

The suspects showed Shin Bet investigators how they chose the spot for the attack, placed an ambush near the settlement of Alon Moreh and opened fire at the couple's car.

After the couple's car stopped, two cell members left their vehicle and fired again from very close range. One of the shooters accidentally shot another militant in his hand, causing him to drop his pistol and leave it at the scene as they quickly headed towards Nablus, the Shin Bet said.

The couple's four children were left in the car physically unharmed.

Several members of the cell that were arrested have carried out other shooting attacks in the area in which there were no injuries, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said on Monday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lauded the security forces' operations on Monday, calling the forces operation "swift" and "successful."

"We are operating on all fronts. We have added four military battalions to the West Bank and deployed thousands of policemen in Jerusalem. The police enters Palestinian neighborhoods in east Jerusalem as it had never done before," Netanyahu said in a statement from his office.

In the past three days, four Israelis and four Palestinians died in wide scale confrontations between Israeli security forces in the West Bank.

Palestinian medical services reported that nearly 500 Palestinians were injured in varying degrees in clashes in the past three days with Israeli security forces and with Jewish settlers.

Israel occupied the Palestinian territories in the West Bank and annexed east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast War.

Palestinians are charging against Israel's "aggressive" moves in east Jerusalem around Temple Mount and the expansion of settlements as moves sustaining the status quo of the occupation and preventing the establishment of a future Palestinian state, according to the two-state solution. Endit