A statement by the Prime Minister's Media Adviser said that
the ISA (GSS) and IDF Central Command units recently
arrested two Ramallah-area residents suspected of active
involvement in the lynching of two IDF reservists at the
Ramallah police station on October 12, 2000.
The two were arrested in the framework of the ISA's search
for those suspected of participating in the double murder.
One of the detainees is the young man who was photographed
waving his bloody hands during the lynching.
Aziz Salha, 20, from the village of Dir Jarir admitted
during questioning to being the youth photographed with the
blood of the victims on his hands. He said that when the
rumor spread that there were two IDF reservists at the
Ramallah police station, an inflamed mob burst through the
gate and entered the station. Salha admitted to being one of
those who broke into the station, to having gone up to the
room where the soldiers were being held, and to choking one
of the soldiers while others beat him. When he saw that his
hands were covered with blood, he went to the window and
showed his hands to the mob below.
The second detainee is Tanzim activist Muhammad Nuara, 18,
from Mazra'a Kabalya, near Ramallah. Nuara also admitted to
breaking into the station, to having gone up to the room
where the soldiers were being held, and to participating in
the murder by stabbing one of the soldiers.
Fifteen suspected participants in the lynching have so far
been detained; most of them are in the process of being
committed to trial. Most are Palestinian policemen, but
some, like those arrested recently, are civilians.
The statement said, "The ISA will continue to locate and
arrest those who participated in the Ramallah lynching until
all such participants will have been apprehended."
Security sources did not say when the arrests had taken
place or whether they took place in Palestinian-controlled
areas.
The lynchings marked a tactical and emotional turning point
in the conflict with the Palestinians for the IDF and many
Israelis, as the Israelis were brutally and viciously
murdered for simply entering Palestinian-controlled
areas.
