Israel To Hold Jewish Militants Without Trial

Israel is to begin detaining Jewish citizens without trial in the hope of catching the culprits behind an arson attack which killed a Palestinian child.

No-one has claimed responsibility for the blaze which tore through a home in the village of Duma in the occupied West Bank on Friday, seriously injuring the child's parents and brother.

Witnesses said the windows of the house were smashed and fire bombs thrown inside as the family slept, and Hebrew graffiti reading "revenge" was written outside beside a Star of David.

The attack caused an international outcry and with no arrests made, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to counter what he called "terrorism" by "criminals in our nation".

So called 'administrative detention' is a practice usually applied to Palestinian suspects and condemned by human rights groups.

Suspects are often imprisoned for months without charge or trial in the hope of preventing further violence in situations where there is not enough evidence to prosecute.

A statement from Israel's security cabinet said the extension of administrative detention to Israelis would "take all steps necessary to bring those responsible to justice and prevent such attacks from occurring in the future".

Human-rights groups have traditionally been critical of the detention without trial of Palestinians in Israel.

B'Tselem, a group which campaigns against human-rights abuses in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, claims that in June some 370 Palestinians were being held without trial in Israeli prisons.

"To the best of my knowledge, there have been no instances of Israelis being held in administrative detention in recent years," said B'Tselem spokeswoman Sarit Michaeli.