Police probe Palestinians in stabbing of boy

NABLUS, West Bank - Palestinian security forces said yesterday they were investigating the possibility that Palestinians stabbed a 12-year-old boy to death in the West Bank, after earlier saying witnesses had blamed Jewish settlers.

The boy was playing in a river bed on Wednesday night near Qaryot village when he was attacked and killed.

Immediately after the incident, a Palestinian security official said witnesses had reported the boy had been stabbed by Jewish settlers who had marched into the village, south of the West Bank city of Nablus.

But senior Palestinian security officials investigating the incident said on Thursday there was no evidence that settlers had been behind the stabbing.

Rase Rajbeh, a Preventive Security official from Nablus, said police were investigating the possibility the boy was stabbed as part of a feud with another Palestinian family or that he was killed by Palestinian criminals.

Israeli police said they questioned the only witness to the incident, a friend of the boy who was playing with him at the time, and that he told them the assailants were Palestinians and spoke Arabic.

"The other boy saw everything. He was questioned last night and he said it wasn't done by Jews," Israeli police spokesman Shlomi Sagi said.

Sagi said there were no settlers in the area, which is several kilometres away from the closest settlement, and as a result of their findings they turned over the evidence to Palestinian police to conduct the investigation.

Israeli police said they were told by their Palestinian counterparts that the boy had probably been killed because of a dispute between families living in the village. Scores of Palestinians have been killed in family feuds.

Settlers have often attacked and harassed Palestinian residents since a Palestinian uprising began almost five years ago. Settlers have also come under regular attack by Palestinian militants.

- REUTERS