4 Israeli Arabs Arrested in Killings That Ignited Raids

JERUSALEM — Four Arab citizens of Israel have been arrested on suspicion of killing three Israeli soldiers inside their tents at a military camp, an attack that ignited a weeklong round of reprisal raids by Israeli forces in Lebanon last month.

Upon announcing the arrests on Wednesday, Israeli officials moved quickly to soften the shock that the guerrillas were not Palestinians from the occupied West Bank or Gaza Strip, but Israeli Arabs. “We mustn’t make generalizations about Israeli Arabs,” said Police Commissioner Yaacov Terner.

The 750,000 Arab citizens of Israel are generally thought to be peaceable, although their second-class status in Israel has long been a source of resentment.

“This was the first time that a murder of this kind was carried out by Israeli Arabs,” noted Police Minister Ronni Milo.

The four Israeli Arabs are charged with sneaking into an army tent on Feb. 14 and killing the soldiers with hatchets, knives and a pitchfork. Government radio said they had been watching the lightly guarded base for weeks. The army also has filed criminal charges against commanders and several soldiers at the base for failing to guard the compound.

Officials said the four Arabs belong to Islamic Jihad, a radical Muslim group. There are many anti-Israel factions that go by that name, including one affiliated with the Palestine Liberation Organization.

The implication of Israeli Arabs in the soldiers’ deaths may stir fears that the Arab population represents a fifth column in Israel. Arabs in Israel sympathize with the Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and Gaza but, except for an occasional outburst, have generally kept their own protests peaceful.

Last week, Rehavam Zeevi, a far-right legislator who favors the removal of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, criticized the police for not announcing that Arabs had been arrested in connection with the base raid.

Police charged that Zeevi, by his revelation, had undermined the investigation in the killings. It turned out that the police had two of the suspects in custody at the time of Zeevi’s statement but were still looking for two more individuals. The first suspects, who are brothers, were caught after police discovered stolen weapons hidden behind a false wall in their house. All the men have confessed and re-enacted the crime for police, government radio said.