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JERUSALEM — The Israeli police said Sunday that they had arrested a 37-year-old American immigrant, a West Bank settler, and charged him in an array of killings and terrorist attacks over the last 12 years, including the murders of two Palestinians, the bombing of a leftist Israeli professor’s home and the maiming of a 15-year-old boy who belongs to a community of Jews who believe in Jesus.



The suspect, Jack Teitel, a father of four and a computer technician and Web site designer, was born in Florida, the son of a military dentist. He went back and forth between Israel and the United States starting in the 1990s, immigrating here in 2000. His parents followed a year later and live in a different West Bank settlement.

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The Israeli boy who was badly injured a year and a half ago, Ami Ortiz, is still recovering from wounds caused by an explosive placed in a gift basket traditionally given out on the Jewish holiday of Purim. His mother, Leah Ortiz, also American and living in the West Bank settlement of Ariel, said in a statement that her “blood ran cold” when she heard about the arrest, especially the knowledge that the suspect lived only minutes away.

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“We are horrified by the fact that there are elements of Israeli society, Jews who feel justified in taking the lives of other Jews because of their beliefs,” she added.

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“I have always known him to be a nice guy, someone who gave me rides, with a sweet wife,” said Batya Medad, a longtime resident of the nearby settlement of Shiloh. She recalled when Mr. Teitel arrived in the area as a bachelor and later found a wife and set up a home. “I was floored when I heard this.”

Mr. Teitel told the police that the murders were in response to Palestinian terrorist attacks.

He was detained in 2000 for those murders but freed because of insufficient evidence. It was only after the Sternhell bombing that the police began to note similarities in many of the attacks and picked up his trail again.