Palestinian teens held over attack on 2 Israeli women

Cabinet nod to defence min Lieberman

JERUSALEM, May 30, (AFP): Israeli authorities have arrested three Palestinian teenagers over the stabbing of two Israeli women in their 80s earlier this month, police said on Monday.

“Three Arab suspects have been arrested, minors, residents of Jabal Mukaber” in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, a police statement said.

It said the suspects were aged 16 to 17 and that one of their mothers had been arrested in the occupied West Bank a week ago on suspicion of trying to carry out a stabbing attack.

The two Israeli women in their 80s were part of a group of five on a walk in woods between west and east Jerusalem when they were attacked and moderately wounded on May 10.

The police said that the suspects went to the scene, two of them armed with a knife and an axe brought from home, and lay in wait “for Jewish victims”.

Two of the youths attacked the women with the knife and the wooden handle of the axe, police said.

They fled the scene but were arrested on May 19 after discussing on social media plans to carry out another attack, they added.

Police said the third suspect had left the ambush site, fearing that his parents’ home would suffer punitive demolition by Israel if he took part.

Israel’s Shin Bet domestic security agency said in a statement that the third suspect had agreed to carry out a subsequent attack on his own if the other two died in their attempt.

Violence since October last year has left 205 Palestinians and 28 Israelis dead, according to an AFP count.

Most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks, Israeli authorities say. Many have been young Palestinians, including teenagers.

In other news, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet on Monday approved the entry of ultra-nationalist Avigdor Lieberman to the ruling coalition as defence minister, after defusing opposition from another partner, the government said.

The religious nationalist party Jewish Home had planned to block the addition of Lieberman’s Yisrael Beitenu party by voting against it in parliament, possibly sparking fresh elections, unless demands for procedural reform were met.

“The cabinet unanimously approved the appointment of Avigdor Lieberman as minister of defence,” a statement from Netanyahu’s office said.

It added that Yisrael Beitenu’s Sofa Landver was approved as minister of immigrant absorption.

The deal is expected to be approved by parliament later on Monday, with the new ministers to take their oaths of office.

The prime minister’s office said that as part of the reshuffle, veteran Likud MP Tzachi Hanegbi, chairman of parliament’s foreign affairs and defence committee, would become a minister without portfolio.

Netanyahu and Jewish Home party leader Naftali Bennett reached a compromise on Sunday night after mediation by a third party, a Likud statement said.

Jewish Home holds eight parliamentary seats, enough to block Netanyahu’s proposed new line-up.

If approved by parliament, the deal would create what is seen as the most rightwing government in Israel’s history.