2011 Itamar Attack

The Itamar attack,
*
* also called the Itamar massacre,
was a terrorist attack on an Israeli family in the Israeli settlement of Itamar in the West Bank that took place on 11 March 2011, in which five members of the same family were murdered in their beds. The victims were the father Ehud (Udi) Fogel, the mother Ruth Fogel, and three of their six children—Yoav, 11, Elad, 4, and Hadas, the youngest, a three-month-old infant. The infant was decapitated. The settlement of Itamar had been the target of several murderous attacks before these killings.

Amjad Awad and Hakim Awad, two young Palestinian cousins from the village of Awarta, were arrested for the murders. On 5 June 2011 the two men were indicted on five counts of murder, stealing weapons, breaking and entering, and conspiracy to commit a crime. Both were later convicted. They initially denied any involvement in the attack but later proudly confessed to the murders, expressing no remorse and reenacting the attack before security officials.

The attack was harshly condemned by the United Nations, the Quartet on the Middle East, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, and many other governments, as well as the Palestinian Authority and a number of non-governmental organizations. Xinhua, the official press agency of the People's Republic of China, stated that the attack was praised by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades stated that "the heroic operation is a natural response to the (Israeli) occupation crimes against our people in West Bank and Gaza Strip." An opinion poll indicated that 63% of Palestinians opposed and about one-third supported the attack. One of the perpetrators of the murders was described as a "hero" and a "legend" by members of his family, during a weekly program.

Background

Due to an increase in security measures by the Palestinian National Authority, operations by Palestinian militant organizations in the West Bank had been declining. Over the previous two years, Israel had removed a number of roadblocks and checkpoints, although a security fence remained in place around Itamar. The terrorist attack was the first to kill Israeli settlers since a drive-by shooting in August 2010 left four dead near Kiryat Arba. Attacks on Jewish settlers in the West Bank had been defended by some Palestinian militants on previous occasions, describing them as combatants in the conflict rather than civilians.

Itamar, with a population of 1,032 (2009) had seen numerous confrontations between Israelis and Palestinians. Tensions between Itamar and the nearby Palestinian village of Awarta had been rising before the attack. Palestinians had accused settlers of cutting down olive trees, burning cars and shooting at Palestinian residents. Ten Palestinians and one Israeli were injured in a confrontation in the week before the attack, when Israeli soldiers were accused of using live fire to quell the clash.

Perpetrators

The attack was carried out by cousins Amjad Mahmad Awad (18) and Hakim Mazen Awad (17). Hakim was a high school student whose father, Mazen, is active in the PFLP. Mazen had previously been arrested and tried by the Palestinian Authority and served a five-year prison sentence for murdering a female cousin and burning her body. His uncle Jibril was a PFLP militant who had participated in a 2002 attack against Itamar which left four civilians dead, including three children, along with the settlement's security officer, and was killed in a 2003 clash with Israeli troops.

Amjad Mahmad Awad was affiliated with the PFLP. He had been employed in Israel as a laborer, and was a student at Al-Quds Open University. The families of the two suspects initially denied the two committed the massacre. Hakim's mother falsely claimed her son had been at home the night of the murders and never left the house, saying that "five months ago Hakim underwent a surgery in his stomach and I'm sure he was tortured and forced into confessing". She later, however, acknowledged his involvement.Palestinian TV airs show praising Fogel family murderer
''Haaretz'', 29 January 2012. Amjad's family claimed he had been in the village at the time of the Itamar murders. One relative said Hakim and Amjad did not know each other, as "one went to university, the other is in high school". He also claimed that if they had been guilty, they would have been captured within days, as "the whole world knows about Israel's advanced investigation abilities and its use of sophisticated means". Amjad and Hakim Awad had decided to carry out an attack on Itamar days before. Three days before the killings, they approached a PFLP member with a request for weapons, but were rebuffed. At midday on Friday, 11 March, they decided that they would enter Itamar later that night, and carry out an attack armed with knives.

Several media sources, among them the ''Guardian'' and the ''Washington Post'', first reported that the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of Fatah, the dominant political faction in the West Bank, claimed responsibility for the attack,
whereas the ''Jerusalem Post'' reported, that the "Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades of Imad Mughniyeh" had claimed responsibility, a group named after a Hezbollah chief of military operations and liaison with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards who was killed by a car bomb in Damascus in 2008. According to '' Al Hayat'', officials of "Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades" denied association with the Imad Mughniyeh-group or the attack.

Amjad and Hakim Awad were already in custody when they were identified as the killers, and their names released to the public on 17 April. They offered a detailed account of the attack, as well as a reenactment. Despite the ties of both suspects to the PFLP, Shin Bet investigators did not identify the attack as being carried out under the auspices of the PFLP, but rather as an individual act. Israeli authorities said that they planned their attack well ahead of time, and showed no remorse for their actions.

The attack

According to Israeli investigators, Amjad and Hakim Awad had attempted to acquire weapons from a Popular Front militant in Awarta. After he refused, they decided to carry out the attack using knives. Just after 9 pm on Friday night, the two left Awarta carrying several knives, an umbrella, and wire-cutting shears. The two tried to cut through Itamar's security fence, but eventually climbed over it. An initial probe showed that the fence around Itamar had functioned properly. At about the same time that they infiltrated, an alarm sounded in the settlement's security room, indicating the exact location where they entered. But neither Itamar's civilian security team nor the civilian security officer, who went to the site of the disturbance and found nothing out of order, informed soldiers patrolling the area of the fence, concluding that an animal had set off the alarm, although procedures prescribe that the IDF is to be informed of any alarm.

After breaching the fence, Amjad and Hakim walked 400 meters into the settlement. The perpetrators first broke into a house of the Chai family who were on vacation, searching all the rooms. They stole an M16 assault rifle, ammunition, a helmet, and a kevlar vest. They waited an hour and entered the Fogels' house at around 10:30 pm. According to the indictment, the two entered the children's room, told eleven-year-old Yoav, who had been awakened by their entry not to be afraid, then took him to a nearby room, slashed his throat, and stabbed him in the chest. Hakim Awad then strangled four-year-old Elad with Amjad Awad stabbing him twice in the chest. The two next entered the parents' room, and turned on the light, waking them up. The parents then struggled with the attackers. Ehud Fogel was repeatedly stabbed in the neck, and Ruth Fogel was stabbed in the neck and back and then shot when the suspects saw that she was not dead. The suspects then left the house. According to their confessions, they feared that the shots had been heard. When they went outside, they saw a patrol vehicle, but realized that they had not been discovered when it did nothing. The two then argued over whether to withdraw or carry out attacks in other homes, with Hakim insisting that they return immediately to Awarta, and Amjad arguing that they should return to the home and steal another weapon. Amjad then re-entered the Fogel home. When 3-month-old Hadas began crying, Amjad stabbed her, fearing the cries would attract attention. According to several accounts, the infant was decapitated or nearly decapitated.Fogel Family Murderers Arrested Palestinian Teens Don't Regret Murdering Children
The attackers did not notice two other children asleep in the house at the time. In their confessions they claimed they would not have hesitated to kill them, had they noticed them. The perpetrators also stole Ehud's M16 rifle. They left Itamar without being detected.

The Awad cousins returned to Awarta on foot, and appealed to Hakim's uncle, PFLP militant Salah Awad, for assistance, and gave him a detailed description of the attack. Salah helped them conceal their stolen weapons and burn their bloodstained clothes, and later transferred the stolen weapons to Jad Avid, a contact in Ramallah, for hiding.

The bodies were discovered by Tamar Fogel, the 12-year-old daughter of the family who arrived home around midnight after a youth outing. After finding that the door was locked, she asked her neighbor, Rabbi Ya'akov Cohen, for help. He noticed tracks and mud near the house, and brought a weapon with him. The two then woke the sleeping 6-year-old boy by calling through the window, and he opened the door, after which Cohen returned to his home. When the girl discovered the murders, she ran outside screaming, and the Rabbi ran back, firing several shots into the air to alert security personnel. Rabbi Cohen, who later entered the house with the girl, said that her two-year-old brother "was lying next to his bleeding parents, shaking them with his hands and trying to get them to wake up, while crying... The sight in the house was shocking." Magen David Adom paramedics and ZAKA (Disaster Victim Identification) volunteers were called to the scene, including ZAKA regional commander Gil Bismot. Paramedics followed a trail of toys and blood to the bedroom, where they discovered the first three bodies: the mother, father and infant. In the next room they found the body of the 11-year-old sibling. Finally they reached the last bedroom, where the 4-year-old boy was severely injured and dying. The toddler died of his wounds despite the efforts of medical personnel.

In accordance with Jewish law, the bodies remained in the home throughout Jewish Sabbath, watched over by ZAKA volunteers. Immediately after the end of Sabbath, another team of ZAKA volunteers arrived from Immanuel and the wider region were dispatched to Itamar. ZAKA volunteers collected all human remains and cleaned up the scene. Dr. Yehuda Hiss of the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute in Tel Aviv traveled to Itamar to carry out an examination of the bodies. The procedure was supervised by the head of the ZAKA Rabbinical Council, Rabbi Ya'akov Roget.

Victims

The victims of the attack are Ehud "Udi" Fogel, age 36, the son of Gush Emunim activists from Neve Tzuf, Ruth Fogel, age 35, the daughter of a Jerusalem rabbi, and three of their six children, Yoav, age 11, Elad, age 4, and three-month-old Hadas.

The Fogel family had recently settled in Itamar. They previously lived in the Gush Katif settlement of Netzarim in the Gaza Strip. After Israel evacuated its Gaza settlements in 2005, they moved to the settlement of Ariel, and in 2009 to Itamar, where Udi Fogel worked as teacher at the post-high school yeshiva. Three of the family's children, Tamar, Roi and Yishai, survived, physically unharmed. They were taken in by grandparents in the aftermath of the attack. Twelve-year-old Tamar is quoted as having promised her relatives: "I will be strong and succeed in overcoming this. I understand the task that stands before me, and I will be a mother to my siblings."

Funeral

The funeral of the five victims on Sunday, 13 March at Har HaMenuchot Cemetery in Givat Shaul, Jerusalem, was attended by some 20,000 people and broadcast on Israeli television. Speakers included former Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, quoted as saying: "We will not bend, we will not give up, we returned to the land of our fathers and it is our home, and the children shall return within their borders and nothing will prevent our faith in the righteousness of our path", Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger, who, linking the murderers to Amalek, stated that "Itamar needs to become a major city in Israel as a response to this murder", and Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin, whose final remarks were: "Build more, live more, more footholds – that is our response to the murderers so that they know – they can't defeat us".

Ruth Fogel's father was quoted as having said: "Our children are prepared to be sacrificed as an offering at the altar we have to continue to build to bring redemption. Udi and Ruthie wanted this redemption."

Udi Fogel's brother Motti Fogel spoke out against the use that has been made of the murder of the family: "All the slogans about Torah and settlement, the Land of Israel and the people of Israel are attempts to forget the simple and pain-torn fact: you are dead. You are dead, and no slogan will bring you back. You are not a symbol or a national event. Your life was a purpose in and of itself, and it should be forbidden for your terrible death to turn your life into some sort of tool."

Following the end of the 30-day mourning period, an emotional memorial service was held in Itamar, where the cornerstone for a new kollel to be named after Udi Fogel was laid. Hundreds of people attended, including Sephardi Chief Rabbi Moshe Amar, Knesset members Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) and Uri Ariel ( National Union), and Yesha Council Chairman Danny Dayan. Many participants signed a Megillah scroll, which was recited by former Military Rabbinate Chief and Yeshiva head Avichai Rontzki before being placed within the foundations of the new kollel.

Manhunt and capture

Following the attack, soldiers from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Israel Police arrived in Itamar and conducted a search across the village of Itamar. The Israeli Air Force used UAVs for aerial surveillance of the area. Israeli authorities declared the nearby West Bank city of Nablus a closed military zone. Israeli troops set up checkpoints on the roads leading to the city and prevented vehicles and pedestrians from leaving or entering, according to Palestinians.Israeli army closes Nablus city after deadly stabbing
Xinhua 12 March 03-2011 Residential areas were placed under curfew, and Israeli troops conducted house-to-house searches. The previously-dismantled Huwwara Checkpoint was re-established.

An initial probe suggested two perpetrators entered Itamar shortly after 9 pm, jumping over the settlement's security fence, and remained in the settlement for three hours without being noticed. Due to the characteristics of the killings, the IDF estimated that the attack was not carried out by an organized terrorist infrastructure but was the work of one or two people, presumably Palestinian. Israeli authorities initially suspected that the killings may have been in revenge for the killing of two Palestinian teenagers from Awarta, who were shot dead near Itamar in 2010.

In Itamar, the Fogel family home was cordoned off by red tape and guarded by soldiers. A forensics team probed the home, collecting evidence left behind by the killers.

An IDF tracker spotted indications that the perpetrators had scaled the fence, and found footprints and equipment abandoned by the killers leading out of Itamar. The tracker, accompanied by an IDF force, followed the tracks to the Palestinian village of Awarta. IDF troops entered the town of Burqa, northwest of Nablus, searching houses and questioning residents. They did not make any arrests. IDF soldiers and Israel Border Police gendarmes also entered the villages of Sanur and Zababdeh, arresting several dozen Palestinians.

A gag order was imposed on the investigation.

Awarta was placed under curfew and declared a closed military zone. IDF troops and Israel Border Police conducted mass arrests of residents throughout the following days. According to Palestinian sources, all men from Awarta were questioned. Residents reported constant door-to-door searches, with some homes being searched up to three times. According to witness reports, Israeli armored vehicles patrolled the village's streets, and troops were deployed on the hilltops around the village. The city of Nablus remained under closure, but four days after the murders, a food delivery was permitted into the city.

On 29 March 2011, the IDF initiated a second wave of arrests in Awarta, detaining 60 Palestinians, including the Deputy Mayor of Awarta, and collecting DNA samples. About 20 were immediately released following DNA testing, and another 40 were interrogated. A week later, AFP reported that the IDF arrested more than 100 women from the village, placing them in a camp where they were fingerprinted and DNA samples were taken, before most of them were released.

On 11 April, daily IDF raids continued in the village, and troops continued to maintain roadblocks at the entrance. According to allegations by Israeli leftists and Awarta residents, soldiers humiliated residents and damaged property. Palestinian officials claimed that Israel had seized land around the village to expand nearby settlements. The Palestinian Authority condemned the raids and called on the international community to pressure Israel into halting them.

Shin Bet questioned numerous Awarta villagers who had been arrested, with some residents who had been arrested and released being again questioned by Shin Bet investigators. Meanwhile, the IDF also questioned residents in various parts of Awarta. The interrogations produced various leads, but slowly, the circle of potential suspects was narrowed. At this stage, the IDF's elite Duvdevan Unit and the Israel Police's special undercover unit began making secret arrests of suspects, and interrogations of the suspects produced additional intelligence information. Hakim Awad was arrested on 5 April, but only started to cooperate after more information pointed to him. Amjad Awad was arrested on 10 April. Forensic evidence gathered from the Fogel family home linked them to the killings.Manhunt for Itamar murderers
ynetnews.com; accessed 24 December 2014. The two were identified as the perpetrators, and kept in custody pending trial. On 17 April, it was officially cleared for publication that Amjad and Hakim Awad had been identified as the killers. Both suspects confessed to the killings and offered a detailed account. They expressed no remorse for their actions, and performed a reenactment of the attack before security officials. Amjad Awad declared that he was proud of what he did and had no regrets, even if he were to be sentenced to death.

Subsequently, Hakim's father, two uncles, and brother were arrested for hiding the murder weapons and suppressing additional evidence. Israeli security forces also arrested the PFLP militant who they had approached for weapons, and raided the Ramallah home of Yazed Hassan Mohammed Awad, Salah Awad's contact who had hidden the two stolen assault rifles following the attack. Both of the assault rifles were found in his home. In addition, Yazed Awad was found to have briefed Amjad and Hakim on Shin Bet interrogation techniques. He was arrested, and in December 2012 was convicted by a military court.

Trial and conviction

On 26 May 2011, the Judea and Samaria Sector Military Court extended the remand of the two cousins for eleven days. The Military Prosecution informed the court that it would file an official indictment at their next arraignment. The Military Prosecution considered requesting the death penalty, due to the extreme nature of the attack. Prosecutors ultimately did not request the death penalty.

On 5 June 2011, Amjad and Hakim Awad were indicted before the Judea and Samaria Sector Military Court on five counts of murder, stealing weapons, breaking and entering, and conspiracy to commit a crime. The suspects confessed to the murder and the military prosecution in the case presented forensic evidence linking them to the scene of the crime, including DNA samples and fingerprints. According to a senior Shin Bet official involved in the investigation, despite the suspects' young age, Hakim and Amjad "described what they did with self-control and did not express regret over their actions at any stage of the investigation." Amjad told reporters in the court "I don't regret what I did and I would do it again. I'm proud of what I did and I'll accept any punishment I get, even death, because I did it all for Palestine."

Hakim Awad was found guilty on five counts of murder in August 2011. He was also convicted for weapons-related and other security offenses. In September 2011 he was sentenced to five consecutive life sentences and another five years in prison. Prior to the sentencing Hakim Awad declared he was not sorry and claimed he carried out the attack "because of the occupation."

In October 2011, Amjad Awad pleaded guilty to five counts of murder. Before deciding whether to convict him, the judges examined the primary evidence. The judges had considered sentencing him to death, but decided not to impose a harsher sentence than what the prosecution had requested. On 16 January 2012, he was sentenced to five life terms and an additional seven years in prison.

Responses

Israel

In response to the Itamar attack, on 13 March, the Israeli cabinet approved the construction of 500 housing units in Gush Etzion, Ma'ale Adumim, Ariel and Modi'in Illit, areas of the West Bank that Israel intends to keep under any permanent accord with the Palestinians. The decision was taken in a late-night cabinet meeting in which both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak took part, after several alternatives, such as starting a new settlement or widening the settlement of Itamar, were rejected. The decision was criticized by the Palestinians and the United States. A spokesperson from the U.S. State Department told the '' Jewish Week'' that the "United States is deeply concerned by continuing Israeli actions with respect to settlements in the West Bank" and that " ntinued Israeli settlements are illegitimate and run counter to efforts to resume direct negotiations."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, visiting relatives of the victims, told the mourners: "They shoot and we build." Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman voiced his opposition to imposing the death penalty on the perpetrators, saying that Israel "should not be guided by revenge."

On 4 April 2011, a new bill was proposed by MK Yoel Hasson

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