Officials: Murderers of IDF Soldier in Arad Arrested

Security officials have arrested two Bedouin Arabs for the murder of 19-year-old IDF soldier Ron Yitzchak Kukiya, Hy”d, killed in a stabbing attack Thursday night in Arad. In a statement, Shin Bet and police officials said they had arrested the two on Friday night. A full news blackout on the details of the case was imposed.

The Shin Bet said that the two Arabs had been tracked down as a result of intense intelligence activities in a joint investigation by the IDF and Israel Police. The statement said that based on the initial investigation, “it appears that the attack was undertaken as a nationalistic terror attack” by the Arabs. The statement said that one of the detainees had connected himself to the incident, and had implicated the second suspect. The investigation is continuing, the statement said.

Kukiya was stabbed in the neck as he waited at a bus stop in Arad. The terrorists apparently stole his weapon and absconded. Kukiya, badly injured, sought help from a passerby, who called rescue forces. The soldier was treated on site and then taken to a Be’er Sheva hospital, but was niftar en route. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu sent his condolences to the family Sunday, promising to “bring the terrorists to justice and fight terror with all our capabilities.”

Commenting on the arrest, Boaz Kukiya, the murdered soldier’s father, told Yediot Acharonot that he was “happy that security officials have captured my son’s murderers. We had heard that there was progress in the investigation, but until today I did not know there had been arrests. We definitely need to think about the death penalty for terrorists.”