Thursday, October 06, 2011

Two arrested for throwing stone that killed Asher Palmer

YAAKOV KATZ
10/06/2011

Palestinians from village near Hebron confessed to throwing the fatal stone, Shin Bet says; three others arrested for stealing Palmer's sidearm after the crash.

The IDF and Israel Police arrested this week two Palestinians from the village of Halhul near Hebron, who allegedly threw the stone that hit Asher Palmer last month, killing him and his son as they drove near Kiryat Arba, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) released for publication on Thursday.

According to the Shin Bet, the two Palestinians confessed during their interrogation to throwing the rock at Palmer's car on September 23, which caused him to run off the road and flip over, killing him and his infant son Yonathan. During the investigation, three additional Palestinians were arrested, who admitted to stealing Palmer's gun after the fatal crash. The Shin Bet retrieved the weapon during the course of the investigation.

Initially, the police and the IDF had downplayed the possibility that stones had been thrown at the scene of the accident near Kiryat Arba but after an Israel Police investigation, the Defense Ministry recognized Palmer and his son as terror victims.

Senior IDF officers told reporters in briefings late last month that while soldiers at the scene at the time of the accident had not seen any stone-throwing, the army and the police were looking into the possibility that a rock had been thrown from a passing car.

Across the settlements of Judea and Samaria, voices claimed that security officials covered up the stone-throwing in order to prevent “price tag” actions by settlers on the same day the Palestinians were presenting their statehood bid at the United Nations.

Ben Hartman contributed to this report.

related:

The police has evidence of 18 similar ( to the deadly Halhul attack) cases of rocks being thrown from vehicles over the past few months, but the IDF said it knew of only three such incidents.

Rabbi Yaron Durani of Nokdim was attacked on his way from Gush Etzion, south of Jerusalem, to Nokdim when rocks were thrown from a passing vehicle just before Rosh Hashanah.

September was the most violent month in the last year and a half in terms of rock throwing in the West Bank, Israel Defense Forces figures reveal.

There were 498 incidents of rocks being thrown last month - 33 percent more than the monthly average over the past year. This was the highest monthly total since Operation Cast Lead in Gaza in early 2009.

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