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JENIN (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces on Thursday detained the brother and a friend of the Palestinian teenager suspected of stabbing an Israeli soldier to death on Wednesday, relatives said.

A large Israeli military force raided the home of 16-year-old suspect Hussein Sharif Ghawadra after midnight, damaging the main gate of the property and releasing sound bombs, Ghawadra's father told Ma'an.

"The Israeli army treated all of us in an aggressive way, and wreaked havoc in the house. They destroyed the windows and the doors. They removed the water tanks, and detained my son Mutasem, who is a university student. They also detained Hussein's friend, Jamil Mohammad Ghawadra and assaulted my wife, my son Tawfiq, and I."

Israeli forces also threatened to demolish the home, according to Ghawadra's father, and asked the family to remove all of their furniture from the house.

Intelligence officers interrogated him about Hussein's life and his motivations for stabbing an Israeli soldier.

Hussein Sharif Ghawadra, 16, stabbed soldier Eden Atias while traveling on a bus in Afula, northern Israel.

Ghawadra told Israeli police that he entered Israel illegally to work, and if he couldn't find employment he would kill an Israeli in revenge for the imprisonment of two of his relatives in Israeli jails, according to Haaretz.
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JENIN (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces on Wednesday raided the Jenin village of a teenager suspected of stabbing an Israeli soldier to death earlier in the day.

Hussein Sharif Ghawadra, 16, stabbed an Israeli soldier to death while traveling on a bus in Afula, northern Israel.

Witnesses told Ma'an that Israeli forces raided the village of Bir al-Basha and arrested Ghawadra's older brother, Tawfik. His father was also detained at his workplace in Israel. The village was declared a closed military zone by Israeli forces.

Ghawadra's father and brother are currently in an Israeli hospital after being assaulted during the arrest raids. His younger brother and sister are under house arrest, locals said.

According to Israeli police, Ghawadra did not have a permit to be inside Israel.

They said he boarded the bus on the Nazareth-Afula route and attacked the 20-year-old soldier as it arrived at its destination.

Four of Ghawadra's cousins are serving life sentences in Israeli prisons.

Hamas, the rulers of the Gaza Strip, congratulated the suspected attacker.

"Congratulations to the Palestinian West Bank hero who killed an Israeli soldier in Afula this morning," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum wrote on his Facebook page.

"This is a heroic act of resistance showing that all methods of oppression and terror have not and will not succeed in stopping our people from carrying out jihad and resistance."