In September 2013, Israeli soldier Tomer Hazan was kidnapped and murdered by terrorist Nidal Amar.

According to the indictment, the murderer’s brother, Nour Al-Din Amar, who is already imprisoned in Israel for terrorist activity, had asked his brother Nidal to kidnap an Israeli soldier and hold him hostage in order to secure Nour Al-Din’s release. The indictment stated that the murderer, Nidal Amar, passed a coded message to his brother in prison prior to the murder via official Palestinian Authority TV, informing him of his intention to kidnap a soldier for use in negotiating the brother’s release.

Palestinian Media Watch checked its recordings of the PA TV program For You, which regularly broadcasts greetings from Palestinians to security prisoners in Israeli prisons, and has indeed found the coded message. During a broadcast in May 2013, the host read a letter from Nidal to his imprisoned brother, in which he indicated in code his plan to kidnap a soldier:

“The calf will soon be in the cage, and we’ll celebrate the freedom of all prisoners.”

Four months later, terrorist Nidal Amar kidnapped and murdered Israeli soldier Tomer Hazan. The terrorist was captured a few days later before he could carry out his plan to hold the soldier’s body as ransom for his brother’s release.

The following is the excerpt from official PA TV:

PA TV host: “Before we end, we have greetings for Nour Al-Din Amar from his brother Abu Wasim [Nidal Amar] and from the family. They say to you that they are well, and that your mother is healthy again. They tell you that ‘the calf will soon be in the cage, and we’ll celebrate the freedom of all prisoners.'”

[Official PA TV, May 9, 2013]

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem / by Itamar Marcus & Nan Jacques Zilberdik, Palestine Media Watch)