The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and the Israel Police announced on Sunday that they had arrested an American-born settler allegedly behind an unprecedented series of deadly terrorist shootings and bombings spanning 12 years, in which two Arabs were killed and Israel Prize laureate Prof. Ze'ev Sternhell was wounded.
According to the Shin Bet, he also planted a bomb at the entrance to house of a messianic Jewish couple in Ariel, seriously wounding their son, Ami Ortiz, who was then 15.
Ya'acov "Jack" Teitel, 37, was arrested by the Israel Police's YAMAM elite counterterror unit on October 7 as he was hanging flyers in the Jerusalem's Har Nof neighborhood in support of the attack on a Tel Aviv gay and lesbian youth club in August in which two people were killed.
Teitel, the Shin Bet stressed, was not the gunman in that attack, who perpetrator is still at large.
Jerusalem Police Chief Cmdr. Aharon Franco said Teitel had confessed to a spate of attacks and reenacted them. Police also displayed photos of a large weapons cache seized at the suspect's home.
"He is like a serial killer. This guy was a Jewish terrorist who targeted different types of people," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. "He was deeply involved in terrorism on all different levels."
Yaakov Teitel's weapons' cache.
Photo: Shin Bet Israel Security Agency
Results of the police investigation will be turned over to the state prosecutor to prepare an indictment.
Teitel, a father of four from the Shvut Rahel settlement, 45 km. north of Jerusalem, came to Israel in 1997 and allegedly smuggled a handgun into Israel aboard a British Airways flight.
The Shin Bet says the gun was used to kill an east Jerusalem cab driver on June 8, 1997, and two months later to shoot and kill a Palestinian shepherd near the Carmel settlement in the South Hebron Hills.
Teitel then left Israel for Florida and returned three years later in 2000. According to the Shin Bet, he was wanted at the time by American authorities for his alleged involvement in violent criminal activity in the US.
"He was a lone attacker," a senior Shin Bet official said when explaining why it took some 12 years since the first attack to arrest Teitel, who has a degree in business and made a living by developing Web sites.
Teitel, officials said, was an "autodidact" when it came to weapons expertise. In addition to the gun smuggled by air, he allegedly smuggled into Israel another nine automatic machine guns and handguns hidden in a shipping container.
His father, who now lives in Betar Illit, served for many years as a dentist in the US Marines and officials said it was possible that Teitel learned about weapons and explosives during his time on American military bases.
"He is an autodidact when it came to using weapons and assembling bombs," the Shin Bet official said. "They were not the most advanced devices, but they were pretty sophisticated and deadly."
Israel Police Insp.-Gen. David Cohen said the investigation uncovered a "dark, dangerous world in which human lives were taken, and others injured, against what appears to be an extremist ideological background."
Teitel was actually arrested by police and the Shin Bet upon his return to Israel in 2000, based on intelligence they had obtained, indicating that he was behind the 1997 shootings. The police released him after they could not find evidence to support the intelligence.
For this reason, Teitel was allowed to receive a license to carry a handgun that was discovered loaded and on him when he was arrested last month.
Officials said that Teitel was extremely cautious and did not discuss his attacks with anyone, not even his wife. As an example, police said that when he was nabbed in Har Nof last month hanging flyers, he was wearing thick gloves so as not to leave fingerprints. However, he had been under surveillance for a while before then.
During interrogation, Teitel confessed to several shooting and bombing attacks, the first of which were the shootings in 1997.
He also allegedly attempted to bomb police stations and patrols because they provided security for gay pride parades.
In November 2006, he planted a bomb inside a police station in Eli, not far from Shvut Rahel. The bomb was discovered and dismantled, but the Shin Bet official said "it was sophisticated" and that had it gone off, "people would have been killed."
Teitel said he attacked the police station to deter police from providing security for a gay pride rally scheduled for Jerusalem later that month.
In April 2007, Teitel allegedly planted a bomb next to the Beit Jamal Monastery near Beit Shemesh. A Palestinian driving a tractor set off the bomb and was injured. Teitel told his interrogators that he planted the device because he heard that the monastery was seducing Jewish children with candy.
Teitel also confessed to planting another bomb in Jerusalem's Ramot neighborhood near a police car on May 15, 2007. The bomb exploded but no one was injured.
A month later he allegedly planted another bomb on the side of a road near the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood and detonated it as a police car passed by. Again, no one was injured.
Teitel, officials said, made the explosive devices in a room in his family's home in Shvut Rahel. He hid the weapons cache near his home and hid another gun outside the nearby Adei Ad settlement.
He confessed to planting a bomb on March 20, 2008, at the entrance to the Ortiz family home in Ariel, messianic Jews whom he believed were trying to convert Jews to Christianity.
On September 25, 2008, Teitel allegedly planted a bomb at the entrance to the home of Sternhell in Jerusalem, which went off and lightly wounded the well-known academic and Peace Now activist. Teitel said he decided to target Sternhell since he understood that the professor had called to kill settlers.
Teitel also confessed to stabbing an Arab youth in 1997 in the capital's Independence Park, since he thought he was gay and was making sexual advances at him.
Officials said that Teitel has been planning additional attacks when he was arrested, but would not specify against whom.
