After four years, 3 arrested in shooting at TA gay youth center

Three men have been arrested in connection with a Tel Aviv gay youth club shooting in August 2009 that claimed two lives, police announced Wednesday.

The arrests marked a dramatic development in a case that has puzzled police for almost four years.

The suspects, whom police said are Jewish — ruling out the possibility that the shooting was a Palestinian terror attack — are due to appear in court Thursday morning. A gag order has been placed on further details in the case.

Channel 2 reported that one of the suspects was a 20-year-old “petty criminal” from Pardes Katz. He would have been 16 at the time of the shooting.

On August 1, 2009, a masked man entered the Bar Noar gay youth center on Tel Aviv’s Nahmani street and began shooting. Counselor Nir Katz and 16-year-old Liz Trubeshi were killed and dozens were injured. Approximately 40 people were present at the center that night.

The shooting shocked the country and the LGBT community, as police struggled to make sense of the case.

Politicians condemned the attack, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressing “shock and dismay.”

The case has been one of the most expensive investigations carried out in recent years and more than 1,000 people have been questioned in connection with the shootings, Haaretz reported.