Israel has identified those responsible for the arson attack that killed three members of the Palestinian Dawabsheh family two months ago but has not arrested them to protect the identity of their sources, the defence minister revealed yesterday.
Moshe Ya’alon was speaking during a closed meeting of some 20 young Likud activists in Tel Aviv, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported. Three Jewish suspects were put under administrative detention following the attack.
The Dawabsheh family home in Duma, West Bank, was torched on 31 July, immediately killing 18-month-old Ali and critically wounding his mother, father and brother. His mother, Reham, and his father, Sa’ad, have since died. His four-year-old brother Ahmed is still in a serious condition in hospital.
The words “vengeance” and “long live the Messiah” were graffitied on to the torched Dawabsheh family home. Eyewitnesses reported seeing four men fleeing the scene toward the settlement of Ma’aleh Ephraim.
Three Jewish suspects are currently being held without trial for terrorist activities: Meir Ettinger, who according to the Shin Bet headed an extreme rightist organisation intent on toppling the Israeli government though violent means, and encouraged others to carry out terrorist acts; Mordechai Meyer, the alleged arsonist behind a fire at Dormition Abbey in Jerusalem; and Eviatar Slonim, accused of setting fire to a home in the Palestinian town of Khirbet Abu Falah.
None of these names has been explicitly linked to the torching of the Dawabsheh family home.
