School bombing suspects may lose residency

'No need to wait for the trial,' Israeli interior minister says

Four East Jerusalem residents and a fifth man from the West Bank are suspected of carrying out a July 31 bombing at Hebrew University that killed nine people.

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israel's interior minister said Thursday he is considering the possibility of annulling the residency status of four Palestinian terror suspects from East Jerusalem.

Police said the four, along with a fifth man from the West Bank town of Ramallah, confessed to carrying out eight attacks that killed 35 people. They said they got their orders from leaders of the Islamic fundamentalist group Hamas in Ramallah.

"In cases like this, there is no need to wait for the trial as the evidence is clear, and these are people that have admitted to these actions," Interior Minister Eli Yishai told Israel Radio.

Because at least four of the accused terrorists lived in East Jerusalem, they carried Israeli identity cards, allowing them to move freely about the country.

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"Exploitation of the ID card for freedom of movement to help commit attacks is a very serious thing," Yishai said.

Authorities identified the four as Wa'al Kassam, 31; Wissam Abassi, 25; Aladin Abassi, 30; and Mohammed Odeh, 29. Kassam is considered the group's leader, while the other three are suspected of gathering information and helping carry out the attacks.

The group operated out of Jerusalem -- and not the West Bank or Gaza -- which is troubling for Israelis, a security official said Wednesday. The Israeli military occupies most West Bank cities and has cut off Palestinian access to Israel from Gaza to prevent terror attacks by militants.

Security sources said the East Jerusalem suspects were married, had families and were employed, and some even had company cars.

The group is suspected of responsibility in a July 31 bombing at Hebrew University in Jerusalem that killed nine people -- five Americans and four Israelis. Sources said the suspect who left the bomb in the cafeteria at the Frank Sinatra International Student Center was a university contract employee who worked as a painter.

The group also is alleged to have been behind a March 9 terror attack that killed 11 people at a Jerusalem cafe and a May attack that killed 15 people and injured 45 at a billiard hall in the Israeli coastal town of Rishon Letzion.

In addition, the group is suspected of planting a bomb on a fuel tanker that was intended to blow up at Israel's largest fuel depot in May. The bomb exploded, but the fuel depot near Tel Aviv was not damaged.

At the time of their arrest Saturday, several suspects were on their way to carry out another attack in the center of Israel, police said. They told police they had planted a bomb on the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway. That bomb was found and disarmed.

Other developments