Shin Bet arrests 4 Palestinians over 2006 murder of Israeli

The Shin Bet security service has arrested four Palestinians suspected of murdering Israeli Daniel Yakobi in 2006, a gag order lifted Wednesday revealed.

The suspects are residents of the villages of Hajjah and Funduk near Qalqilya, and were arrested in April and May in connection with the murder. The four will be charged in the coming days.

Yakobi, 59, was stabbed to death and his body was burned and placed in the trunk of his car south of Qalqilya on July 27, 2006. He had been a resident of the West Bank settlement of Yakir.

The four men arrested were Tiyun Tiyun, 21, his brother Ahmed Tiyun, 25, Amar Nufal, 19, and Naseem Jabaiti, 26.

Although the Tiyun brothers and Jabaiti are involved in the Fatah movement and its Tanzim faction, the investigation concluded that they had conducted the murder of their own initiative.

During the three-year investigation into the murder, Tiyun Tiyun confessed that he and his friends had killed Yakobi as revenge for the killing of Islamic Jihad militant Hamada Shatiwi the previous day.

Tiyun admitted to investigators that he attacked Yakobi with a spanner after Yakobi had come to Tiyun's brother's garage to have his car repaired. On Ahmed Tiyun's instructions, Tiyun Tiyun and Nufal then took Yakobi's car outside the village and set it alight with Yakobi's body still inside.

The Tiyun brothers, Nufal and Jabaiti returned to the car after Shawiti's funeral, where they completed the burning of the vehicle.