The Palestinian group most active in terror has been the one Israel and the West are plying with arms and money:
Some of the gunmen who participated in Friday's shooting attack near Hebron belong to Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction, Fatah activists in the West Bank have confirmed. They said the attack was carried out jointly by Fatah and Islamic Jihad. The attack shows that several armed Fatah groups continue to operate in the West Bank despite statements by top PA officials to the effect that most of these groups had been dismantled. Although many members of Fatah's armed wing, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, have in recent months handed over their weapons to the PA security forces in return for jobs and salaries, dozens of Fatah gunmen are still refusing to follow suit.
The PA's plan to dismantle all the Fatah-affiliated militias in the West Bank is still far from achieving its goal. Shortly after PA Interior Minister al-Yahya announced Saturday that the Aksa Martyrs Brigades had ceased to exist, the group responded by distributing thousands of leaflets throughout the West Bank scoffing at the claim and vowing to continue the armed struggle against Israel.
Meanwhile,
the insinuations of Haaretz and the Palestinian Authority that the victims were either Jewish terrorists or criminals has been laid to rest now that a
victim's father and the third member of the hiking party who escaped unharmed have
spoken out:
The sole survivor of Friday's terror attack on hikers near Hebron, Naama Ohion, is a first-year law student. She told friends that the hike was to have ended at the springs in Wadi Iskha, where there is a cave hundreds of meters long with numerous levels. According to one theory, the cave served as a hideout for the second-century CE rebel against Rome, Bar Kokhba. Amihai, who served for a year with Hebrew University's Cave Research Unit, knew the cave and wanted to show his friends.
Why were the hikers in such a dangerous area of the West Bank? That's where the heart of Jewish history is.