The Middle East

By Jamil Hamad/Hebron

The terrorist who lobbed two grenades into a bus station in Beersheba last week, has also confessed to being responsible for two recent attacks in Hebron: a fatal stabbing and a grenade assault that wounded 14 soldiers. Apparently SALIM SARSOUR, 29, did all this while being courted by Shinbet, Israel's internal-security agency, to inform on the militant group Hamas. According to a Palestinian intelligence official, one of Sarsour's group, in detention after the Beersheba attack, claims Sarsour told him that he had multiple meetings with Shinbet officers; that he was given $1,000, in part to pay for a mobile phone to facilitate contacts with Shinbet; and that his Shinbet handlers helped him travel to Jerusalem three times, during which he scouted targets. The Israelis claim that they had asked the Palestinian Authority to arrest Sarsour before his last crime; the P.A. says he was never on its list.

--By Jamil Hamad/Hebron