Smirking Right-Wing Extremists Confess To Torching Jerusalem School

Give Peace a Chance: Parents erect signs denouncing racist violence after Jewish extremists firebombed a mixed Arab-Israeli school in Jerusalem. Image by getty images
The three suspects who confessed to carrying out an arson attack on a joint Arab-Jewish school in Jerusalem have been identified as activists for a radical right-wing group.
The trio were captured in photos smiling in a Jerusalem courtroom as they appeared to face the charges.
The suspects, named as Yitzhak Gabai, 22; Nahman Twitto, 18; and Shlomo Twitto, 22, from the West Bank community of Beitar Ilit, are part of the Lehava organization, which works to prevent marriages between Jews and non-Jews.
The suspects confessed to the arson, the Shin Bet security service reported.
A fire was set in the classroom of the joint Arab-Jewish Max Rayne Hand In Hand Jerusalem School on Nov. 29.
A preliminary police investigation found that the blaze was set intentionally.
“Death to Arabs” and “There is no coexistence with cancer” were among the anti-Arab epithets spray-painted on the school walls.
Jewish-Arab tensions have risen in Jerusalem following a recent spate of violence.
The Hand In Hand Jerusalem School is Israel’s largest joint Arab-Jewish school and the only such primary and high school in the city. Five Hand in Hand schools are located throughout the country.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Most Popular
- 1
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 2
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 3
Fast Forward Suspected arsonist intended to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a sledgehammer, investigators say
- 4
Politics Meet America’s potential first Jewish second family: Josh Shapiro, Lori, and their 4 kids
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture How an Israeli dance company shaped a Catholic school boy’s life
-
Fast Forward Brooklyn event with Itamar Ben-Gvir cancelled days before Israeli far-right minister’s US trip
-
Culture How Abraham Lincoln in a kippah wound up making a $250,000 deal on ‘Shark Tank’
-
Fast Forward Marco Rubio sits down with Michael Benz, Jewish former Trump official with an antisemitic online persona
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.