Security forces on Monday night arrested Samar Iwassy, a 35 year old resident of an Arab neighborhood of Jerusalem. He was arrested on a variety of security charges.
Iwassy was released from an Israeli prison in 2012 as part of the deal to release captured IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. He had been serving a 30 year sentence for taking part in a terror attack, and was released after serving ten years. According to the conditions of his release, Iwassy is now supposed to serve out the rest of his sentence, in addition to any new sentences that will be imposed on him.
Iwassy was one of over 50 terrorists arrested in recent days, who were released as part of the Shalit deal.
Also arrested, police said Monday, was Ziyad Awad, who was arrested a month ago for the April murder of Baruch Mizrahi Hy”d, Mizrahi was driving to Kiryat Arba for a Passover Seder meal with his pregnant wife and three of his children when the terrorist opened fire on the family car. He served as head of the Technology Division in the Sigint Unit, part of the Intelligence Brigade in the Investigations and Intelligence Branch of the police.
After the attack, Awad reportedly told his son Iz a-Din that his motive for murdering Mizrahi was religious, and that “according to the religion of Islam, everyone who kills a Jews goes to paradise.”
Detailed police forensic work on the more than fifty bullet casings, which were all found to have come from one weapon, and an ammo magazine found at the scene of the murder which had finger prints out it, along with other DNA evidence, allowed the revelation of the terrorist’s identity.