Police arrest 3 for targeting West Bank land inspector
Suspects caught at Kibbutz Tirat Tzvi home of official who orders demolitions of illegal structures
Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter
Three men were arrested early Friday morning in Kibbutz Tirat Tzvi, near the Jordan border, on suspicion that they intended to damage the property of a senior inspector from the Israel Land Administration who lives on the kibbutz.
The three, aged 19-23, allegedly targeted the inspector, responsible for approving building in the northern West Bank, because he had distributed demolition orders for illegal structures in the West Bank.
The suspects hailed from the West Bank settlements of Talmon and Shadmot Mehola.
Tirat Tzvi sits several kilometers south of Beit She’an on the Israel-Jordan border.
Kibbutz spokeswoman Dalia Yohanan told The Times of Israel that the three caught the attention of residents and the kibbutz guard when they began hanging posters on the inspector’s car, denouncing him and the demolition of illegal settlement buildings in the West Bank. After the suspects refused to remove the posters and leave the kibbutz, residents alerted police.
Police found containers filled with gasoline on the three men, and suspect they intended to burn the inspector’s car or home.
Yohanan said that she was unaware of any weapons found on the suspects.
Friday morning, the Nazareth District Court heard the police request to extend the detention of the three suspects.
Also overnight, seven Israelis, including four minors, were arrested in connection with this week’s incident in the Palestinian village of Qusra.
Early Tuesday afternoon, some 15 Israeli settlers were captured by Palestinians, and held in a structure in the town after they allegedly approached Qusra in order to carry out an attack to protest the Israeli Civil Administration’s uprooting earlier in the day of a settler olive grove near the West Bank outpost of Esh Kodesh. The settlers, said to have come from the outpost, claimed later they were merely out hiking.
The settlers, some of whom were beaten by their captors, were handed over to the IDF after several hours.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
