Police have arrested Hakim Mazen Niad Awad, 17, and Amjad Mahmoud Fawzi, 18, in the West Bank village of Awarta on suspicion of murdering in their beds five members of the Fogel family in neighboring Itamar on March 11. They confessed they were motivated by an ambition to kill Jews as Palestinian nationalists and die as martyrs. They expressed no remorse.
After climbing the Itamar perimeter fence, the pair stole an M16 automatic rifle from an empty house, broke into the Fogel home and knifed two children Yoav and Elad. Their parents Udi and Ruthie Fogel woke up to find the killers in their bedroom and put up a fight. They too were stabbed to death.
When one of the two murderers returned to the house to look for more weapons, he killed three-month old Hadas, stole another M16 and left. He said had he known there were two more children sleeping in the house, he would have butchered them too. Their 12-year old sister found the five bodies when she returned home that night.
The two killers handed the stolen rifles over to Palestinian accomplices in the Ramallah sector who later helped them destroy the evidence of their crime. Six were rounded up.