Israeli soldier murdered by Palestinian

Israeli soldiers carry the body of Tomer Hazan killed in the north of the occupied West Bank to a waiting helicopter Photo: AFP/Getty Images

Not good.  Not good at all.

The story is from The Telegraph.

Israeli soldier murdered by Palestinian


An Israeli soldier has been found dead after being murdered by a Palestinian acquaintance in a development likely to further dampen the prospects for ongoing peace talks, Israel's armed forces said.

Tomer Hazan, 20, was discovered at the bottom of a well in the West Bank village of Sanriya hours after his family reported him missing late on Friday, triggering a major search operation by the army, police and Shin Bet, Israel's domestic security service.

A Palestinian man, named as Nadal Amar, 42, from Beit Amin, a nearby town, was said to have confessed to the crime and told police that he planned to trade the soldier's body to win the release of his brother, Nur al-Adin Amar, a member of the Palestinian Fatah faction who has been in jailed since 2003 for militant activity.

Investigators arrested Amar along with another brother after their inquiries led them to Beit Amin.

The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) said in a statement that the soldier and the suspect had previously worked together in a restaurant in the Israeli city of Bat Yam The IDF said Amar had picked up the soldier in a taxi on Friday morning and that the pair had then been driven to Sha'arei Tikva, a Jewish settlement near Beit Amin.

It is not clear why Hazan agreed to accompany Amar.

After his arrest, Amar led the investigating team to the seven foot well where he had hid the body, the IDF said.

Danny Danon, Israel's deputy defence minister, put the blame for the murder on Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority.

"This brutal murder is the result of ongoing incitement by the Palestinian leadership," Mr Danon said. "Abbas gives a motivation for appalling acts such as this, when he continues to pay bonus money to murderers in prisons."