Three IDF soldiers were arrested on Tuesday for alleged involvement in "price tag" attacks which occurred in the West Bank recently, the IDF Spokesman's office said in a statement.
The soldiers were transferred to the custody of military police for interrogation.
RELATED:Media Comment: Price Tag – Israeli or Palestinian?Barak: 'Price tag' attackers operate almost like terroristsAccording to the IDF, the arrests were connected to the arrests of seven females suspected of carrying out nationalistic crimes by the Israel Police on Sunday.
The female suspects are residents of West Bank settlements who allegedly
carried out a string of nationalistic crimes against IDF forces and
Palestinian property in recent weeks.
The suspects are six minors and one adult. Two of the suspects sneaked
into an IDF base in the Binyamin region of the West Bank in September to
spray-paint far-right slogans and vandalize IDF vehicles and property.
They allegedly did this to distract the IDF from the activities of the
other five, who at the same time cut down hundreds of Palestinian-owned
olive trees near the village of Kusra, police said.
Police said they attributed the acts to the suspects “despite their [young] age.”
The arrests came following a high-priority investigation launched by the
Lahav 433 elite police unit, together with the Judea and Samaria police
district.
“These actions were prompted by a fear that an outpost would be cleared in November,” a police spokesman added.
The suspects’ attorney, Adi Kedar, described the arrests as “one big
scandal” during a remand hearing at the Petah Tikva Magistrate’s Court.
Kedar said police lacked “any justification for arrests,” adding that
the suspicions amounted to “property crimes.” He later told
The
Jerusalem Post that one of one of the suspects had spent seven months
under house arrest for an alleged “price-tag” incident.
Those charges were dropped once it was clarified that the soldier who testified against her had lied, Kedar said.
Settler sources told the
Post that they believed the suspects were innocent.
Yaakov Lappin and Tovah Lazaroff contributed to this report.