Palestinian man charged over murder of three Israeli teens

The man Israel accuses of being the mastermind of a plot in which three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped and murdered earlier this year has been charged with organising and funding the attack.

According to reports from the closed hearing, the group had only intended to kidnap one hitchhiker and keep him alive, but snatched three instead: Eyal Yifrah (19, Gilad Shaar and Naftali Fraenkel(both 16). The teenagers were killed a few hours later when an unspecified part of the plot went wrong.

Details of the case against Hussam Qawasmeh (40), a Palestinian from the West Bank city of Hebron, close to where the three were seized returning home from their religious schools, were briefed by the domestic intelligence agency Shin Bet to the Israeli media.

The account of the alleged plot, culled from the indictment and briefings, paints the fullest picture yet of the events surrounding the seizure and murder of the three men in June.

Shock waves

The case sent shock waves through Israeli society and was a large motivation for the devastating recent Israeli military incursion in Gaza and a justification for the largest appropriation of Palestinian land in the West Bank by Israel in 30 years.

Qawasmeh was apparently originally lukewarm about the plan proposed to him by a relative, Marwan Qawasmeh, who with Amer Abu Aisheh has been named as having carried out the kidnapping and murder and is still wanted by Israel.

Qawasmeh is also accused of helping to hide the two other suspects, including a period spent sheltering underground in a disused cistern.

Qawasmeh was arrested on July 11th in the Shuafat refugee camp in Jerusalem. He apparently planned to flee to Jordan on a false passport.

According to Shin Bet, only four people were directly involved in the plan initially, while seven others “were let in on the secret” afterwards amid efforts to hide those involved.

Local cell

Despite the suspects’ close links to Hamas, an unnamed Shin Bet officer quoted in Haaretz appeared to confirm that the agency believed the kidnapping was not directly ordered by the Hamas leadership in Gaza, but was a largely independent operation by a local cell.

Following the discovery of the three bodies after a huge manhunt in the West Bank, Israeli security forces arrested hundreds of members of Hamas on the West Bank.

According to details of the indictment, Hussam Qawasmeh has previously been jailed in Israel for his involvement with Hamas. He also solicited money from his brother – a former prisoner released in exchange for the kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011 and deported to Gaza – for an unspecified “military operation”.

The money – delivered in three tranches by a female courier – was used to buy cars used in the kidnapping, two M-16 rifles and two handguns.

Qawasmeh reportedly told the Shin Bet officers interrogating him that he learned the kidnapping had gone wrong at 1am on June 13th, a few hours after the youths were snatched at a hitchhiking spot popular with settlers.

Marwan came to him and said: “We wanted to kidnap one but we got three. We messed up. We killed them.”

The teenagers were buried on land bought by Hussam Qawasmeh – and registered in his own name – earlier in the year.

A third Qawasmeh brother is currently serving a life sentence for his involvement in an attack in Jerusalem in which a British tourist died.

– (Guardian service)