Israeli authorities said on Tuesday they had arrested a suspect they accuse of carrying out a double bombing that killed two in November in Jerusalem.
“The Shin Bet, the police and the army have arrested Eslam Froukh, suspected of carrying out the bombing in Jerusalem last month,” said a joint statement from the Shin Bet, the internal security service, and the Israeli police.
A 15-year-old Israeli-Canadian teenager, Aryeh Schupak, and a 50-year-old Israeli, Tadesa Teshuma, succumbed to their injuries following this double attack on November 23 at the entrance to Jerusalem.
The 26-year-old suspect is a Palestinian from East Jerusalem, a Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 by Israel and as such had a residency card in Israel, the statement added, but he lived in Kufr Aqab, a Palestinian neighborhood in the city. Holy City separated from its center by the Israeli separation wall.
“The suspect was driven by his Salafist-jihadist ideology, he identified with the Islamic State (IS) group and acted alone after a long period of preparation to target Israelis in Jerusalem,” the text further accused.
A homemade submachine gun and an explosive device were discovered in his possession, the statement said, and “his custody has been extended by the court before he is indicted in the coming days”.
The double attack was perpetrated against a backdrop of a new spike in violence: in the wake of deadly anti-Israeli attacks in March and April, the Israeli army carried out more than 2,000 raids in the occupied West Bank which, together with the clashes which are sometimes associated with it, more than 150 deaths on the Palestinian side.
This is the heaviest toll in seven years, according to the UN.
