The suspects in the murders of Kristine Luken and Netta Blatt-Sorek operated on a double border: both the one in south Jerusalem separating Israel from the West Bank and the invisible line straddling crime and nationalism.
They started with robbery, breaking-and-entering, and other thefts and added to that platform over the last year a series of terrorist attacks.
<snip>
But Shin Bet and Israel Police investigators have disclosed that the two murders were not carried out as part of a special continual plot. The suspects, according to a Shin Bet official, woke up in the morning, decided to kill Jews, and took advantage of the first chance that came their way.
Kafih Ghanimat, Ibrahim Ghanimat and Iyad Patpatah were not members of a terrorist network and were not taking any orders from Hamas' leadership in Gaza or Damascus.
The three were just veteran criminals, with access to weapons (they had been caught in possession of pistols in the past, though both the murders were stabbings), who lived illegally and undisturbed on the Israeli side of the Green Line.
http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/mess-report/with-the-west-bank-barrier-unfinished-the-path-for-terrorists-is-wide-open-1.339338