Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency announced Wednesday that it foiled efforts by Hamas to carry out terrorist attacks against Israeli targets under the direction of operatives from the Gaza Strip, like reported by jpost.com.
According to the agency, 21 year-old Issa Shalaldeh and 20 year-old Omar Mas’ud were arrested on suspicion of being recruited by Hamas’ military wing in the Gaza Strip to carry out terror attacks against Israelis and also for aiding in the transfer of terror funds.
The two, who were activists in the Hamas student group at Bir Zeit University, are also suspected of undergoing various military trainings. They were charged with having links with terror elements and being members of a terror organization.
During the investigation, 24 year-old Hazem Hamayel was found to have contacted a Hamas official by using a fictional Facebook profile. The Hamas official is said to have taught him how to organize a terror attack.
According to the Shin Bet, senior members of Hamas’ military wing in the Gaza Strip established a cell composed of Hamas operatives in the Gaza Strip and West Bank in 2015 in order to recruit more operatives to carry out terror attacks against Israelis.
The cell specifically targets Palestinian students from the fields of engineering and technology as they would have the know-how to manufacture explosives.
Dozens of Hamas operatives have been arrested by the Shin Bet and the IDF since the establishment of the cell and during their interrogations have confessed that they had been recruited by the Gaza cell through social networks to carry out terror attacks against Israeli targets.
“The activity of the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza, along with additional Hamas activity from the Gaza Strip (such as the “West Bank headquarters”) is an inseparable part of Hamas’ attempts to undermine security stability in the West Bank, Israel and the Gaza Strip,” read a statement released by the Shin Bet.
