Three Jews charged with arson at Hebrew-Arabic school

The Jerusalem District Attorney's Office Monday filed an indictment against three right-wing Jewish activists for setting fire to a Hebrew-Arabic school in Jerusalem last month.

Yitzhak Gabay, 22, from Jerusalem, and brothers Shlomo Twito, 20, and Nachman Twito, 18, from Beitar Ilit, a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, were charged with arson, storming and destroying property, Xinhua reported.

According to the indictment, Nov 29 the trio set ablaze classrooms in the bilingual school which has both Arab and Jewish students and spray-painted racist graffiti on the walls. The act was widely condemned by Israeli leaders across the political spectrum.

The three are members of Lehava, an extremist group that opposes inter-religious marriages between Jewish women and non-Jewish men, specifically Arabs, according to the indictment.

They were arrested earlier this week and admitted to the charges against them.

Home to 1,000 pupils, the school is the biggest Jewish-Arab institute and has been run by Jewish and Arab educators since 1998. It has been vandalised with hate graffiti three times this year.

Jewish extremists have been targeting mosques, churches, cemeteries and even dovish Israeli groups in recent years.

Lehava was founded by disciples of Rabbi Meir Kahana and his extremist and ultra-nationalist Kach movement, which was banned from the Knesset for racism in 1988 and outlawed in 1994.