Israeli security forces arrested the suspect in a raid in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.The Shin Bet security service named him as 29-year-old Arafat Irfaiya from Hebron. Both the police and Shin Bet have said investigations have so far not found conclusively whether the killing was a “terrorist attack” or from other motives. In the runup to Israel’s general election in April, however, politicians and Israeli media appeared to have no such doubts on Sunday.”I have no doubts about the nationalist motives of the murderer,” Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan told public radio. “After so many years of suffering from terror we should know – this is a nationalist attack.”Commenting on calls to execute Palestinian militant killers, Erdan said he was in favour of applying the death penalty in certain circumstances. “If it becomes clear that there is no possibility of rehabilitating the murderer and that he abused his victim, in such cases capital punishment should be applied,” he said.

Source: The Guardian February 10, 2019 11:15 UTC