Two Palestinian youths from the West Bank village of Awarta, arrested in April on suspicion of murdering five members of the Fogel family in Itamar, were charged with five counts of homicide at a military court on Sunday.
The defendants, 17-yearold Hakim Awad and 18-yearold Amjad Awad, who are from the same clan, have confessed to stabbing and shooting two young brothers, their parents, and a three-month-old baby in the attack.
RELATED:IDF proposes that security in settlements be beefed upArrests ‘brought back everything from that terrible night’“I don’t regret what I did, and would do it again,” Amjad Awad told reporters in court. “I’m proud of what I did and I’ll accept any punishment I get, even death, because I did it all for Palestine,” he added.
The charge sheet detailed how the two saw two young brothers sleeping in
their beds, 4-year-old Elad and 11- year-old Yoav, snuck into the home,
and stabbed them both to death. They then entered the parents’ bedroom,
where they launched a knife attack on Ehud and Ruth Fogel. The parents
fought back, attempting to fend off the attackers. Ehud died of stab
wounds and Ruth was shot dead by the attackers with a stolen M- 16 gun.
The two then left the house, before hearing cries from three-month-old
baby Hadas. Awoken by the attack, the baby lay in its crib in the
parents’ bedroom.
“They went back into the house and stabbed the baby to death to silence
her cries,” a security source said following the arrests in April.