E'ad Jo'eba, 43, a Hevron cobbler identified with Hamas, was
arrested by the GSS, the Police Minorities Department and the
IDF one month after the murder of Shmuel Mett Hy"d,
and the wounding of Sammy Weissbart, both students at
Yeshivas Mir in Jerusalem.
Jo'eba was arrested on 5 Tishrei but the press ban was only
lifted after a series of intensive investigations in which
the suspect admitted to the act and reconstructed it.
The Jerusalem Magistrate Court extended his arrest while
police investigate his ties with Hamas. The suspect, a devout
Muslim from a family identified with Hamas, told
investigators that he decided to kill "a settler" after a
pig's head was thrown at him in a Jaffa mosque two-and-a-half
months ago and after anonymous vandals drew a pig's head on
the wall of a mosque in Hevron. The suspect said he decided
to carry out his attack in Jerusalem in order to die near the
al-Aksa Mosque, thereby defending Islam.
According to the investigation Jo'eba set out from his home
in Hevron in the afternoon via public transportation, crossed
into Jerusalem from Abu Dis, drank a cup of coffee at
Damascus Gate, bought a butcher's knife from a peddler in the
Old City market, went into the local mosque to pray and then
proceeded to look for a victim.
The suspect told investigators that he walked to the Jaffa
Gate where he spotted three yeshiva boys walking along Rechov
Dovid towards Jaffa Gate. He lay in hiding and when they drew
near he left his hiding spot and stabbed two of them. After
the attack he disposed of the knife and fled toward Damascus
Gate.
Spotting a group of policemen he dashed into a nearby mosque
where he washed off the victims' blood, prayed once again and
hid in the mosque until police checkpoints were removed from
the city gates.
The suspect was unknown to security forces and his arrest was
made possible through an intensive GSS investigation.
