Gregg Zoroya

USA TODAY Opinion

Two Jewish extremists were indicted Sunday in Israel for the July firebombing deaths of a Palestinian toddler and his parents, after a lengthy investigation that angered Palestinians and fueled a deadly series of stabbings across Israel and the West Bank.

The indictment named Amiram Ben-Ulial, 21, a West Bank settler, as the main suspect in the firebombing. A minor was charged as an accessory. Yinon Reuveni, 20, and another minor were charged for other violence against Palestinians. All four were charged with belonging to a terrorist organization, the Associated Press reported.

The July 31 arson attack in the West Bank village of Duma killed 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh, while his mother, Riham, and father, Saad, later died of their wounds. Ali’s 4-year-old brother Ahmad survived with severe injuries.

At least one Molotov cocktail was thrown through an open window of the Duma home while the family was sleeping, according to Agence France-Presse.

The firebombing was condemned across Israel, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there would be "zero tolerance" for what he described as terrorist acts by Jewish settlers.

Nasar Dawabsheh, brother of the father who was killed, told Reuters that he hoped the defendants were punished, but he was skeptical of Israeli justice.

"We have not trust in the Israeli judiciary. They would not have launched an investigation were it not for the international pressure on them," he said.

Israel's Shin Bet security service said the suspects admitted to carrying out the attack, saying it was in retaliation for the killing of an Israeli a month earlier, according to the AP. But families of the accused said confessions were extracted in what amounted to torture.

Ben-Ulial was described as part of an extremist group of West Bank Jewish settlers known as the "hilltop youth," a leaderless group of young people who set up unauthorized outposts, usually clusters of trailers, on West Bank hilltops — land the Palestinians claim for their hoped-for state, the AP said.

Palestinian attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers over the past three and a half months have killed 21 Israelis, mostly in stabbings, shootings and car-ramming attacks, the AP reported. That figure does not include two Israelis killed Friday by an Arab man in a shooting attack on a Tel Aviv restaurant, as the motive for that attack hasn’t officially been determined yet.

During that time, at least 131 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire, 90 of them identified by Israel as assailants.