IDF: 5 Palestinians admit to W. Bank stoning attack
Shin Bet, police solicit confessions from Kfar Haras youths behind Route 5 stone-throwing which injured 7 Israelis, including toddler.
By YAAKOV LAPPIN
Palestinian rock-throwers who caused a car crash that seriously wounded a three-year- old girl earlier this month are in custody, security forces announced on Sunday.The incident occurred on March 14, when rocks hurled at a car near Ariel in Samaria caused it to swerve and smash into a truck, injuring seven Israelis, including Edel Biton, the young girl.She remains hospitalized in serious condition at the Schneider Children’s Medical Center for Israel in Petah Tikva. Biton’s two sisters and mother were moderately wounded.“Those involved in the attack, five youths aged 16 and 17 from the village of Haras, admitted during questioning by the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) to their involvement in the attack,” the Shin Bet said.The domestic security agency added that in recent months, local terrorism has increased in the West Bank, particularly rock throwing by Palestinians at Israeli civilian vehicles in the West Bank.“The severe results of this attack illustrate again the danger inherent in these types of local terrorism incidents,” the Shin Bet added.In recent days, a 71-year-old Israeli man was shot and lightly wounded in the leg in a suspected terrorist drive-by shooting in the West Bank.The shooting occurred as the man stood at a hitchhiker’s post at Kedumim junction, in the northern West Bank.Magen David Adom paramedics arrived on the scene and evacuated the injured man to hospital, MDA spokesman Zaki Heller said.The man had hitched a ride to the area, and exited a car just before he was shot, Heller added.