The Israel Security Agency identified 18-year-old Hakim Maazan Niyad
Awad and 19-year-old Amjad Mohammed Fawzi Awad, both high school students,
as the killers of five members of the Fogel family in Itamar, Middle East Newsline reported. The Awads, who
come from the same clan, were said to have confessed to planning and attacking the Jewish community.
"Hakim and Amjad planned to perpetrate a terrorist attack in Itamar
several days before March 11," ISA said on April 17. "To this end, they
tried to acquire a firearm. They turned to Mohammed Said Awad — now under
arrest — a PFLP militant in Awarta, and asked that he procure weapons for
them. He did not do so."
Instead, the Awads, armed with knives, walked the two kilometers from
Awarta to Itamar,
broke through a perimeter fence and covered their tracks. The teenagers broke
into an empty house and stole a U.S.-origin M-16 assault rifle as well as a
flak jacket. They then broke into the Fogel home next door.
ISA said the Awads first killed an 11-year-old and four-year-old inside
the
Fogel house. Then the suspects entered another bedroom and, amid a struggle,
killed the parents along with their three-month-old daughter. The
Palestinians then returned home with two M-16s, ammunition and other
equipment and sought PFLP help to conceal the weapons.
"During the investigation, it emerged that various members of their
families were extensively involved in helping them and were fully aware of
what they had done," ISA said.
After the killing, ISA, Army and police interrogated more than 100
residents of Awarta. The investigators also took samples of hair for DNA
tests.
The Awads were identified as coming from a family of PFLP insurgents.
Hakim's father Mazen, spent five years in a Palestinian Authority prison
after he was linked with the killing of his niece. An uncle, Jibril, was
killed in 2003 by Israeli soldiers and had been involved in PFLP attacks on
Itamar.
"The IDF has invested in numerous operational and intelligence efforts,
and has worked closely with other security bodies in order to find those
responsible for this vicious murder," Israeli military spokeswoman Col.
Avital Leibovich said.
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