Israeli bus attacker had deserted with gun

[Englander]

The Independent
Online Edition

By Donald Macintyre in Shfaram
Published: 06 August 2005

The Israeli army is investigating how the Jewish killer of four Israeli Arabs managed to remain at large with his military M16 weapon six weeks after deserting from the army in protest at the withdrawal from Gaza.

The inquiry was set up as thousands of residents in this normally peaceful town turned out for the funerals of two Christian and two Muslim victims of Eden Natan Zada, who was beaten to death by an enraged crowd after the shootings on a 165 bus. It came after the parents of the gunman, identified as an adherent of the outlawed Kach movement, were widely quoted in Israeli media as complaining the army had not done enough to locate and disarm their son after his desertion despite information that he was living in the West Bank settlement of Tapua, a bastion of extremism.

An army statement said that Dan Halutz, the Israel Defence Forces Chief of Staff, had "ordered that the circumstances surrounding and leading to the possession of an IDF weapon by the soldier, who had defected and was of a problematic background, be investigated".

Military sources insisted that "great efforts" had been made to locate the deserter. But Mohammed Barakeh, a prominent Israeli Arab Knesset member who lives in the town, said yesterday that the attack represented - among other things - "a failure of the security services to ... prevent and arrest ".


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