Israel charges Arab teens over stabbing

Israel yesterday charged two Arab Israeli schoolgirls with the attempted murder of a security guard last week, saying they expected to die in the attempt and become martyrs for Islam.
A police statement quoted the charge sheet as saying that the two girls were both aged 14, from the mixed Arab-Jewish town of Ramle, and had been influenced by a wave of Palestinian violence since October.
“On February 3, 2016, after a stabbing attack in which three terrorists were shot dead at Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate and because of the wave of terror, the accused agreed to meet the next day, equipped with kitchen knives, to carry out a nationalist stabbing attack,” it said.
“They conspired to become ‘martyrs’ and die in the war for religion.”
On February 4, “one of the accused suggested to the other that they go to school first and carry out the stabbing attack in the afternoon,” it added.
“Nevertheless the other accused persuaded her that they should mount the attack in the morning instead of going to school.”
It said the girls took knives from their home kitchens and hid them in their school bags, then set out for Ramle’s shopping mall with the intention of killing an Israeli soldier.
According to the statement, when they could see only civilians they decided to target a private security guard at the mall entrance.
The two then pulled knives and stabbed the guard in an arm and his legs, lightly wounding him before they were overpowered by a second guard and a soldier.
They were charged yesterday in juvenile court with attempted murder, conspiracy and possession of knives, the police statement said.
The attack underlined the unpredictable nature of the wave of stabbing attacks that have targeted Israelis since October. Many of the attackers have been young people, including teenagers, believed to be acting on their own.
More than four months of violence has claimed the lives of 26 Israelis, as well as an American and an Eritrean, according to an AFP count.
Among them was a 19-year-old Israeli policewoman killed in the February 3 Damascus Gate shooting and stabbing attack that authorities say influenced the schoolgirls.

Court weighs sanity of man who burned Palestinian alive
An Israeli court yesterday weighed the sanity of a Jewish man found to be the ringleader of the beating and burning alive of a Palestinian teenager in 2014.
Israeli settler Yosef Haim Ben-David, 31, was found to have led the assault, but his lawyers submitted last-minute documents saying he suffered from mental illness and was not responsible for his actions.  Two doctors are to testify at the district court in Jerusalem, with a decision not expected until a later date.
On February 4, a court sentenced his two young Israeli accomplices to life and 21 years in prison for the killing, which was part of a spiral of violence in the run-up to the 2014 Gaza war.
The two were minors at the time of the chilling attack in which they snatched Mohamed Abu Khdeir, 16, from an east Jerusalem street and then killed him.  Israeli authorities said the suspects had decided to kill an Arab and equipped themselves with cables, petrol and other materials before randomly choosing Abu Khdeir.
The last-minute legal manoeuvres on behalf of Ben-David were harshly condemned by Abu Khdeir’s family, who have expressed doubt they will get justice.