Undercover officers operating in the area of the West Bank village of Dahariya
late Sunday night caught three men who torched a car belonging to a local
Palestinian man and spray-painted “price tag” on a wall in the village, police
spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said Monday morning.
Police released a photo on
Monday morning that showed the gear it said the suspects were carrying,
including gloves, a balaclava, a fake M-16, a sack full of rocks, a Leatherman
utility knife, a crowbar and a bottle carrying some sort of flammable
liquid.
The three men were arrested after they had been in Dahariya and
attempted to enter the village of Samoa.
They underwent questioning by
Judea and Samaria police, who said they are suspected of being linked to other
ideological crimes carried out in the West Bank in the past.
During an
undercover operation in early October, three cops dressed as Palestinian
shepherds were assaulted by settlers wielding sticks and wearing T-shirts over
their faces as masks, who told them to leave the area. Police said the sting was
planned after a long series of attacks by settlers against Palestinian shepherds
and left-wing activists in the southern Hebron Hills.
Also in October,
police Insp.-Gen. Yohanan Danino announced plans to expand the Judea and Samaria
branch of the YAMAR central investigative unit, in order to fight crimes of a
national character committed by both Jews and Arabs.
The announcement
came after Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch said in September that
police must show “zero tolerance” toward ideological crimes, often referred to
as “price-tag” attacks, and that police would launch a new unit to fight such
incidents that would include undercover patrols in the West Bank.
The
three suspects were brought before the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court for a
hearing on Monday morning, and their remands were extended until December 9.