The security services have identified the suicide bombers as being Hamas members, resident in Dahariya, south of Hebron. The two men were Majid Al Qumsiya, and A’tal Sadeq. They were wanted for questioning about eighteen months ago, but managed to disappear. At the time, there was a suspicion that they intended mounting a spectacular terror attack.
Investigators summoned family members of the two men from Dahariya to the Forensic Medicine Institute at Abu Kabir, but they did not identify the bodies. Accordingly, it was decided that the relatives would undergo genetic testing to determine whether the identity of the corpses was in fact as suspected, and whether they were related to the people from Dahariya.
IDF forces this evening raided two houses located within the jurisdiction of the township of Dahariya, which in the "B" zone as defined under the Oslo accords. They arrested the three brothers and the parents of Majid Al Qumsiya, a resident of that town who had worked in a poultry store before vanishing about a year ago. Also arrested were the three brothers and the mother of A’tal Sadeq. About a year ago, the two men mysteriously vanished from home, after a long period in which they had drawn close to the Hamas movement.
The arrest of the family members formed part of a wave of arrests last night in the Bethlehem and Hebron area. Also, an internal blockade was imposed on the region of Mt. Hebron and the town of Bethlehem, preventing Palestinian inhabitants of the villages leaving for the towns and vice versa.
Meanwhile, in Gaza, the Palestinian police rounded up several dozen Hamas activists during the night. Palestinian sources in Gaza reported that hundreds of Palestinian policemen had deployed through the Strip, set up road blocks and made arrests in the homes of individuals identified as Hamas activists.
The sources stated that none of the heads of the Hamas leadership apparatus had been arrested. Some had disappeared from their homes without advising anyone of their whereabouts. Palestinian sources asses that they are being held in places of concealment by the Palestinian police, for fear the Israelis might liquidate them in a military action.