WORLD BRIEFING / ISRAEL

Seven Arabs were charged with killing a Jewish gunman four years ago at the scene of an attack in which he shot dead four people on a bus in an Arab town in Israel.

The Justice Ministry contends that the gunman was killed after he had been subdued by police, which meant the seven attackers had taken the law into their own hands. Reports at the time said the gunman had been beaten to death by a crowd that stormed the bus.

The charges were condemned by Israeli Arab legislators, who have long complained that police and other authorities are lenient toward Jews who attack Arabs.

The Arabs charged were among residents of the city of Shfaram who stormed the bus after Eden Natan-Zada, a 19-year-old army deserter and settler, fired at passengers two weeks before Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.