Five Israeli Druze were arrested for kidnapping three Palestinians from Hebron, Israeli security officials announced on Thursday as charges were filed in Haifa District Court.
The suspects, from the Druze village of Yarka in northern Israel, are accused of kidnapping three Palestinians at gunpoint from a compound where workers were staying in November.
The five then took the Palestinians to an isolated area in the trunk of a car, forced them to make telephone contact with their family members and inform them that they had been kidnapped, then beat their captives. During the assault, the suspects told their victims that this was revenge for the kidnapping of Tinan Fero.
Fero, an 18-year-old student from the Druze village of Daliyat al-Karmel was hospitalized in Jenin after being critically injured in a car crash. Palestinian gunmen, apparently believing Fero was an undercover Israeli soldier, abducted him from the hospital. Fero died after being disconnected from his life support equipment.
Tensions between Palestinians and Israel’s Druze community of around 150,000 escalated as did fears of a large-scale Israeli military operation in Jenin to retrieve Fero’s body.
The captors released the Palestinians after beating them.
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