Israeli police announced on Tuesday the arrest of a suspect in the murder of three Israeli teenagers in June. Israel authorities say Hussam Kawasme, who was quietly arrested nearly a month ago, was the Hamas funded ringleader responsible for the kidnapping and killing of Gil-Ad Shaer, Naftali Fraenkel and Eyal Yifrah that ignited the violent conflict in Gaza.
Here’s more on the arrest from Reuters:
Kawasme’s arrest was made public for the first time on Tuesday in a document from an Israeli court case over whether houses belonging to him and two other suspects - who remain at large - should be destroyed as a punitive measure. The court document said Kawasme had admitted to helping to organize the kidnapping - securing funding from the Hamas Islamist group in Gaza and purchasing weapons which he passed on to the two other suspects who carried out the attack. Kawasme also helped to bury the bodies of the teenagers in a plot of land he had bought a few months earlier, it said.
“The news of the arrest and confession from Qawasmeh comes after some western media outlets called into question whether the kidnappers in June were acting on behalf of Hamas leaders,” according to the Daily Beast. “Buzzfeed last week reported that some Israeli intelligence officers said the kidnappers—identified by Israel in June as Amer abu Aysha and Marwan Qawasmeh—were acting on their own.”
