The burnt, bullet-riddled body of an Israeli has been handed over by the Palestinians to Israeli military authorities, General Yaacov Zigdon of the Central Israel command covering the West Bank said Sunday.
"It's a 'sensitive' matter. The Palestinian police handed over to us on Saturday at Camp Ofer (near Bitunya in the West Bank) a burnt, bullet-riddled body in a car which did not necessarily belong to the victim," he said on Israeli public radio.
"It so happens that a 25-year-old Israeli living in the south of Israel was reported missing, and our inquiries are thus heading in that direction. But his family did not manage to identify the body, given the state it was in," the general said.
"All lines of inquiry are open: it might be a criminal affair, or a murder carried out for (Palestinian) nationalist reasons, or even a mixture of the two," Zigdon added.
Israeli newspapers quoted a Palestinian police officer as saying the victim was implicated in drug dealing.
But Israeli police spokesman Rafi Yaffe said the Israeli reported missing had never been implicated in drug dealing. "His police file only cites minor charges for possessing drugs," he said – JERUSALEM (AFP)
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