Israel arrests alleged Hamas men for settler killings

Israeli security forces said Monday they had captured five alleged Hamas militants who carried out last week's killing of a Jewish settler couple in front of their young children.

The suspected attackers were arrested the day after Thursday's West Bank shooting, a joint police, army and Shin Bet statement said, adding that "the squad belonged to the Hamas movement in Nablus".

It said that an unspecified number of accomplices were also rounded up.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated the security forces on their work and said the Jewish state was using an "iron fist" to crush a rising wave of Palestinian unrest.

"We are not prepared to give immunity to anybody, not to any rioter... or any terrorist, anywhere, and therefore there are no limits on the activities of the security forces," he  said in a televised address, as he prepared to convene his security cabinet in special session.

Netanyahu is under pressure from right-wingers in his government coalition after four Israelis were killed in as many days and several others wounded, among them a two-year-old child.

Monday's statement, in Hebrew, said that the suspects had confessed to shooting dead Rabbi Eitam Henkin and his wife Naam in their car as their four children sat in the back.

"The detainees were taken to the Shin Bet for questioning and confessed to involvement in the attack in which the Henkins were murdered," it said.

Source: AFP