Three settler children have been arrested by Israeli police, nearly 10 days after the firebombing of a Palestinian taxi south of Bethlehem that left six Palestinians with severe burn injuries.

The three boys, two aged 12 and one aged 13, were arrested and questioned on Sunday, and remanded in custody for a further 24 hours by a court on Sunday night. The minors are from the settlement of Bat Ayin in Gush Etzion, south of Jerusalem.

Judge Yaron Mintkevich said that the boys would have to be released on Monday if there was no further progress in the investigation, as there was not a huge amount of evidence against them, Haaretz newspaper reported.

The suspects' lawyer, David Halevi, claimed that the fact that the boys may be released on Monday proved that "the police have no meaningful evidence against [my] clients."

Halevi is defending the boys on behalf of the Honenu legal aid organisation, which defends Jews suspected of crimes against Palestinians. He is also defending a 15-year-old girl who is a main suspect in the lynching of a Palestinian teenager in Jerusalem on 17th August, the same night as the attack on the taxi.

According to YNet News, the father of one of the suspects said, "He did nothing. He's a good, obedient boy, I can't believe he would do something like this."

Five of the six Palestinians injured in the molotov cocktail attack are still in the Hadassah University Hospital in Ein Karem, Jerusalem. Five of those injured are from the same family, four of whom are still in hospital.