JERUSLAEM, February 24, 2011 (WAFA) – Israeli police Wednesday revealed it had arrested four Israeli Jews on charges of stabbing to death a Palestinian from East Jerusalem earlier this month.

Husam Rweidi, 24, was walking home with a friend on February 11 when four Israelis attacked them because they are Arabs. The Israelis stabbed Rweidi in the face, but his friend was able to drag him away to a nearby restaurant where he called the police and an ambulance. Rweidi was taken to hospital but later died of his wounds.

Police arrested two of the Jewish attackers immediately following the assault based on a description given to them by Rweidi’s friend, who suffered minor injuries. The two others were later arrested. Two of the four live in Jerusalem and the other two live in West Bank settlements.

They were arraigned on charges of carrying out an attack based on nationalist reasons, which means it could be described as a terrorist attack.

Even though Rweidi was from Jerusalem, the Israeli police conditioned turning his body over to his family on burying him in the West Bank since the family lives behind the concrete wall separating Jerusalem from its West Bank environs. The family, however, lives in Kufr Aqab which falls within the expanded boundaries of Jerusalem that extend all the way to Ramallah.

The family refused the police conditions and insisted on burying their son in the family cemetery below Jerusalem’s Old City wall. In a compromise deal, the police agreed for the burial at the family cemetery but insisted that they will turn over the body in the middle of the night for immediate burial and that only a handful of relatives will be allowed at the burial ceremony.

In addition, the police banned the family from holding special prayers for their son at al-Aqsa Mosque inside the walled Old City. The prayers were then held at a mosque in Ras el-Amoud, overlooking the Old City.

M.A./F.J.