Fire and fury

Thursday’s West Bank firebombing that left a girl seriously injured makes headlines again Sunday as the suspected perpetrators were arrested and reportedly confessed. The growing scandal surrounding corruption charges against Yisrael Beytenu politicians also burns up the front pages, as more officials are said to be arrested.

Haaretz’s lead story is about the growing investigation into alleged corruption in the Yisrael Beytenu party. Last week a number of current and former party officials were arrested on suspicion of corruption. Haaretz reports Sunday morning that officials involved in the investigation said that additional arrests are expected, and that newly received information might connect party leader Avidgor Liberman to the alleged crimes. The report says that other government offices, besides the Interior Ministry, that were under Yisrael Beytenu control might also be implicated, but doesn’t specify which.

Yedioth Ahronoth speaks to Ranit Kirshenbaum, the daughter of Yisrael Beytenu deputy minister Faina Kirshenbaum who’s the center of the scandal. Ranit was arrested earlier in the week on suspicion of using bribe money paid to her mother to purchase an apartment in Ramat Gan. She was released to house arrest Friday.

“I responded to all the questions that the police investigators posed to me. I am convinced that there hasn’t been any fault in my actions,” she told the paper this weekend. “They did injustice to me with this unnecessary arrest and I believe that the suspicions against my mother and me will be clarified as incorrect,” she told her lawyer.

Israel Hayom cites a Channel 1 report which says that a police investigation into the Yisrael Beytenu scandal raised suspicions about a deal between senior party officials and the Rishon Lezion cultural affairs office. According to the report, the party is suspected of transferring hundreds of thousands of shekels from the Yisrael Beytenu coffers for the purpose of a performance of Russian artists, but in the end only a third of the funds were used. The remainder, the police suspect, according to the report, was returned to members of the Yisrael Beytenu party.

Ayala Shapira, the 11-year-old girl who was seriously burned in Thursday night’s attack in the northern West Bank, remained in serious but stable condition over the weekend and underwent multiple surgeries, Israel Hayom reports. “Her condition is serious and there’s still a threat to her life, but her situation improved compared to that in which she arrived,” Dr. Itai Pessach, head of the children’s ward at Sheba Medical Center, tells the paper.

Yedioth Ahronoth runs a virtually identical story to that of Israel Hayom about the Shapira family, and also reports on the arrest of the suspected perpetrators of the firebombing. The IDF arrested 12 suspects Thursday night, of whom a 20-year-old and a 16-year-old confessed to carrying out the attack. The paper quotes a Shin Bet announcement saying that “the two left [the village of Azun] in the director of the road leading from Maale Shomron to the neighborhood of El Matan, and when they discerned a moving vehicle on the road, they lit the Molotov cocktail and threw it at them. Afterwards they fled and returned to the village.”

The papers also give minor mention to a Palestinian stabbing two Border Police officers outside Jerusalem’s Old City’s Lion’s Gate on Friday. According to Haaretz, the perpetrator apparently exited the Temple Mount along with other worshipers, stabbed the two officers and fled the scene. The two policemen were lightly injured in the attack.

On the United Nations front, Israel Hayom quotes senior official Saeb Erekat saying that the Palestinians on Monday will be submitting their proposal to the United Nations calling for an end of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. While the final draft of the resolution has yet to be published, Erekat said that the wording was amended to garner greater support from the 15 members of the United Nations’ top body.

Haaretz also quotes an internal IDF document which recommends that the military end the mandatory universal draft and make preparations for a different model.

“The IDF must prepare for this eventuality based on what happened with other militaries. Even if the changes in the Israeli case will be different from what happened in other countries around the world, it’ll be hard to assume that the results forecast by them will completely pass [the IDF] over,” the document said.