Who are Israel's hilltop youth?

“Here in Douma is where it all began,” a senior Israeli military official told Al-Monitor, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We date the start of the current wave of terrorism to the murder of the Henkins on Oct. 1, but there is no doubt that the seeds were planted on July 31, when the Dawabsha family was burned to death in their home in the village of Douma. The fact that this incident has not been resolved by the Shin Bet, but the murderers of the Henkins were caught just four days after the attack, has caused considerable unrest among the Palestinians.” This is an accurate description of the current state of affairs.

Riddled by conspiracy theories, the Palestinian street was convinced that the Shin Bet and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were not really trying to catch the murderers who had burned Saad and Riham Dawabsha to death along with their infant son, Ali. Another son, Ahmed, 5, suffered severe burns in the incident and remains hospitalized.

“When the attack targets Jews, you can see how efficient the Israeli security forces are,” one top Palestinian official said, requesting anonymity. “They solve the crime and capture the people responsible within days or weeks at most. Then suddenly, when the attack goes the other way, and it is Jews who murder Arabs, nothing happens.”

On Nov. 30, I accompanied two senior Israeli officers on a tour of the “Land of Outposts” in Samaria. We stood atop Tel Katzir and looked out over the surrounding settlements, the illegal outposts that sprung from the settlements and the Arab villages dotting the landscape. At one point, the officer extended his arm to point to a Palestinian village stretching across a slope east of the hill where we were standing. It was Douma. The Shin Bet had identified the escape route that the perpetrators took as they retreated from the village, but they had not at that time managed to track them down.