An Israeli military court
has sentenced a Palestinian man to three
life terms for the abduction
and murder of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank.Hussam Qawasmeh, a member of Hamas, must also pay $63,000 (£41,000) in compensation to the victims' families.
Two other suspects were shot dead by Israeli forces in Hebron in September.
The teenagers' murders in June set off an escalating cycle of violence and led to a 50-day conflict between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza.
The leader of Hamas, the Islamist group dominant in Gaza, said in an interview in August that a Hamas cell had killed the teenagers but had not acted on instructions from above.
'Cold-blooded' Naftali Frenkel and Gilad Shaar, both aged 16, and 19-year-old Eyal Yifrach went missing at a road junction between Jerusalem and Hebron as they hitchhiked home on 12 June.
Their bodies were found almost three weeks later in a nearby valley.
The Israeli authorities launched a crackdown on Hamas in the West Bank following the abduction and quickly identified two of the group's operatives, Marwan Qawasmeh and Amer Abu Aisha, as suspects. They managed to evade capture for several months before being killed.
Source:BBC
No comments:
Post a Comment