Ruti and Udi Fogel
Ruti and Udi FogelIsrael news photo: INN

Israeli security services appear to be sparing no effort in their pursuit of the murderer(s) of the Fogel family in Itamar. They arrested 100 women in a nearby Arab village overnight.

The Ma'an news agency of the Palestinian Authority reports that IDF forces entered Awarta, only a few hundred meters from Itamar in the Shomron (Samaria), overnight and arrested some 100 local resident females. The women were taken from their homes for investigation.

It is likely that the murderers of Rabbi and Mrs. Fogel and three of their six children last month came from, and returned to, Awarta on the night of the murder. The terrorists, who slashed the throat of a 3-month-old baby and stabbed the others to death as well, crossed over a security fence whose below-quality standards residents have blamed on the government.

Residents of Awarta say that within hours after the slaughter, the army imposed a closure on the town, took over four buildings and turned them into a detention and investigation station. Almost everyone between the ages of 15 and 45 was questioned, some 300 were reportedly arrested – before last night – and between 20 and several dozen remain in detention.

A just-released survey shows that a full third of Palestinian Authority residents have expressed support for the brutal massacre of the Fogel family. The poll was jointly conducted by the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah.