JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli police have arrested a group of Jewish extremists in connection with the kidnap and murder of a Palestinian teenager in east Jerusalem, an Israeli official told AFP on Sunday.

“Apparently the people arrested in relation to the case belong to an extremist Jewish group,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity, shortly after the website of the Haaretz newspaper reported six arrests in connection with the case.

The kidnap and murder on Wednesday sparked four straight days of riots which began in annexed Arab east Jerusalem but on Saturday spread to more than half a dozen Arab towns in Israel.

Details of the case have been subjected to a strict gag order.

Earlier, police acknowledged for the first time there were “indications that the background to the killing was nationalistic”.

It followed days of growing suspicion that Wednesday’s murder was carried out by extremist Jews in revenge for last month’s abduction and murder of three Israeli teenagers in the occupied West Bank.