Israel Charges Two Jews for West Bank Firebombing That Killed Palestinian Family

Israeli prosecutors filed murder charges on Sunday against a man and a minor for an arson attack in the occupied West Bank that killed three members of a Palestinian family and helped fuel the fiercest eruption of street violence in years.

The attack on July 31 killed 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh and his parents Saad and Riham.

Amiram Ben-Uliel, a 21-year-old from a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, was charged with three counts of racially motivated murder at Lod court near Tel Aviv. A second Jewish defendant, whose name was withheld due to his age, was charged as an accessory.

Related: Palestinian Father Dies Eight Days After Firebombing That Also Killed His Toddler

Defense lawyers said the pair gave false confessions under torture in close-door interrogations, an allegation denied by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Shin Bet security agency.

"I doubt such confessions will stand up in court," lawyer Hai Haber told reporters. "We know there's no significant external evidence linking the suspects to this incident."

The attack in Douma village and ensuing Israeli investigation laid bare fissures in Netanyahu's coalition government, where one ultra-nationalist partner voiced misgivings about the handling of Jewish suspects.

Thirteen other Israeli Jews, most of them minors, were also indicted for hate crimes, including assaulting a Palestinian, vandalism of Arab property, and setting fire to a church.

Referred to in Israel as "price-tag attacks" — exacting a "heavy price" in retaliation for a perceived wrong — such offenses have usually been carried out in what the attackers say are reprisals for Palestinian violence against Israelis or government curbs on unauthorized West Bank settlement building.

Related: In Photos: The Anatomy of an Israeli Settler Price Tag Attack in the West Bank

Saad Dawabsheh's brother Naser said he hoped the defendants would receive the maximum penalty, but was skeptical of Israel's seriousness in prosecuting the case.

"We have no trust in the Israeli judiciary. They would not have launched an investigation were it not for the international pressure on them," he said, accusing the government of effectively supporting "the terrorism conducted by (West Bank) settlers against our people."

The time it has taken Israel to crack down on the Jewish militants, compared to the speedy and sometimes lethal response by state security forces to similar actions by Arabs, has angered Palestinians, contributing to a wave of stabbings, car-rammings and shooting attacks against Israelis since October 1.

Watch the VICE News dispatch The Heart of the Conflict: Intifada 3.0:

Twenty-one Israelis and a US citizen have died in the latest bloodshed, a number that will rise if police deem a Tel Aviv shooting that killed two people on Friday as a pro-Palestinian attack. The gunman, an Israeli Arab, is at large.

On Sunday, Israeli security forces were searching for a gunman who shot and moderately wounded an Israeli female soldier at a Hebron holy site on Sunday. The incident took place near Ibrahimi mosque, a holy site which is known to Jews as the Cave of the Patriarchs.

Israeli forces or armed civilians have killed at least 132 Palestinians, 82 of whom authorities described as assailants. Most of the others were killed in clashes with security forces.

Related: In Photos: One Year in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Israeli Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel of the ultra-nationalist Jewish Home party had urged a high-level investigation of the allegations that the Douma defendants were tortured and for a Shin Bet overhaul. His party's leaders, Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, disagreed.

Israeli officials said their investigation into the attacks by far-right Jews were hampered by the suspects' operating in small, tight-knit cells and eluding electronic surveillance.

Netanyau said the indictments demonstrated the rule of law in Israel, telling his cabinet in broadcast remarks: "We oppose murder of all kinds. We oppose violence of all kinds."

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