Palestinian suspects: We killed cabbie because he was a Jew

Two Palestinians have confessed to the murder of an Israeli taxi driver two months ago, claiming they perpetrated the act because the victim was Jewish, in order to avenge the death of a relative killed by Israel Defense Forces soldiers.

The Shin Bet arrested the suspects on May 23, after the body of Gregory Rabinovich was found near the central Israeli town of Gan Yavneh earlier that month, according to a gag order lifted on Thursday.

Suspects Muhammad Khaldi and Muhammad Uda, both residents of the northern West Bank village of Arana, were charged for the murder in the Petah Tikva District Court.

Security forces are still searching for a third Palestinian suspected of involvement in the incident.

Initially, police investigators believed that Rabinovich was killed during an attempted robbery. However, the Shin Bet announced on Thursday that the suspects told interrogators their crime was driven by a nationalistic motive.

Khaldi and Uda told the investigators that while they did rob Rabinovich upon entering his taxi, they murdered him to avenge the death of Islamic Jihad militants Mohammed Abu Rahim, who was killed during an IDF arrest raid in 2007.

"We killed [Rabinovich] because he was a Jew," the suspects confessed during their investigation.

Neither suspect belongs to a known terrorist organization. There has been a marked rise of violent attacks by West Bank Palestinians unaffiliated with terror groups over the last two years.