JERUSALEM (EJP)—A third suspect was arrested in Hebron Saturday night by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for his involvement in the murder of Gilad Shaer, Naftali Frenkel, Eyal Yifrach, the Israeli press reported.
Husam Dofsh had been reported missing from his home since the abduction of the three teens on June 12, was apprehended by Israeli soldiers in a Hebron coffee shop soon after the call, but would not admit to complicity in the killing.
The Israeli teenagers’ bodies were found near Halhul lat Monday.
Two weeks ago, the Israeli authoritis named Amar Abu-Eisha, 33, and Marwan Kawasmeh, 29, from Hebron, two Hamas terrorists who previously served time in Israeli prisons, as the two main suspects in the abduction of the teens. Kawasmeh had reportedly been recruited by the Hamas military wing in the Hebron area in 2009. He was involved in military training in caves in the Hebron area, was active in obtaining raw materials for the production of explosives and assisted the organization in recruiting additional youths for Hamas activities. For these actions, he was imprisoned until March 2012.
At the same time the third suspect was arrested, Israel announced relief from the strict restrictions faced by residents of Hebron since the abduction. The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) announced that as of Sunday morning Palestinian workers from Hebron were authorized to enter Israel. Additionally, Palestinians from the region would be allowed to enter Jerusalem during the month of Ramadan.
Meanwhile, Gaza terrorists continued to increase the range of their rocket attacks on southern Israel, targeting the city of Beersheba, capital of the Negev and the largest Israeli southern city, for the first time since November 2012, during Operation ‘Pillar of Defense’ which the IDF launched in order to curb persistent rocket fire from Gaza.
Many Israeli cities including Ashkelon, Ashdod and even Tel Aviv and Jerusalem were then targeted with rockets during that conflict.
Three rockets were fired at Beersheba on Saturday evening, setting off warning sirens. One was intercepted by the Iron Dome defense system, while two fell in open fields. There were no reports of casualties.
The attack on Beersheba, which has a population of 200,000, marked a significant escalation in the Gaza rocket attacks, and could lead to a severe Israeli response.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held urgent consultations Saturday evening with Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon, Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch, and the heads of the security services. He said Israel was hitting Hamas targets in response to the rocket fire, and would use additional force if necessary.
After ordering increased Israeli forces to the Gaza border on Thursday, Netanyahu had warned: “One possibility is that the fire will stop and the quiet continues. The other is that the fire continues and then the increased forces that are in the south will act forcefully. The safety of our citizens is first and foremost.”
“The idea that ‘quiet will be answered with quiet’ is a serious mistake,” Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman said on a visit to Sderot on Friday, adding that he believed Israel must now strike Hamas hard.
“It cannot be that after the kidnapping and murder of three teenagers and two consecutive weeks of rockets fall, the approach of Israel will be ‘quiet is answered with quiet,’” he said. “There can not be an agreement with Hamas. Ignoring the problem or being afraid to deal with it will lead us to a situation in which thousands of missiles are fired at us, not hundreds.
“We cannot to accept a situation in which Hamas controls the pace of events and dictates when it flares up the region, and all we do is respond,” he added.
In another development, violent protests sparked by the abduction and killing of a Palestinian teenager, Mohammed Abu Khudair, earlier this week spread to Arab villages in Israel on Saturday, presenting a new challenge to the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“The direct cause of death was burns as a result of fire and its complications,” the Palestinian attorney-general Mohammed Al-A’wewy was quoted as saying by the official Palestinian news agency Wafa late on Friday.
At Khudair’s funeral on Friday in the Shuafat quarter of Jerusalem, furious Palestinians chanted “Intifada! Intifada,” calling for a new uprising against Israel and stones were thrown at Israeli police.