NEW YORK – Two Palestinian Arab terrorists who were killed while shooting at Israeli soldiers this week were involved in the murders of at least four American citizens.

The terrorists, Jassar Samaru and Nassim Abu Rus, were killed when they shot at Israeli soldiers who were taking action against a bomb-making factory in Shechem (Nablus) on January 21, 2002.

Some of the bombs that murdered American citizens in Israel in previous years were actually constructed by Samaru and Rus while they were supposedly “imprisoned” in one of Yasir Arafat’s “jails,” according to the Israeli daily Ha’aretz (Dec.18, 2001). It noted that “They are both on Israel’s most-wanted list of fugitive terrorists, but “the Palestinian Authority has yet made no effort to arrest them.”

Ha’aretz revealed: “Both Samaru and Abu Rus were arrested by the Palestinian security forces at one point, but even while sitting in a PA jail in Jericho in 1997, they still managed to build five bombs. These were used in that summer’s two major attacks in Jerusalem—in the Mahane Yehuda market and the Ben-Yehuda pedestrian mall.” Samaru and Abu Rus were later “released” from the Jericho “jail” and “returned to Nablus, and played a central role in Hamas’s operations there.”

Mrs. Leah Stern, of New Jersey, was murdered in the Mahane Yehuda bombing, and another American was wounded. Yael Botwin, 14, of California, was murdered in Ben-Yehuda attack, and at least ten other Americans were wounded.

According to Ha’aretz, Samaru and Abu Rus also made the bombs used in the August 2001 bombing of the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem, in which two Americans were murdered (Judith Greenbaum and Malka Roth, both of New York) and at least four other Americans were wounded, including Joanne (Chana) Nachenberg of New York, who has remained in a coma ever since the bombing.