Shin Bet Foils Palestinian Terror Cell Planning Suicide Bombing

The Shin Bet foiled a Palestinian terror cell based in Yehudah and Shomron planning to carry out suicide bomb attacks and other bombings against Israel, the organization announced on Monday.

Members of the cell arrested on Dec. 14 were from the Palestinian towns of Jenin, Tulkarem and Kabatiya. Israeli security forces seized a bomb in one of the raids.

According to the Shin Bet, the cell’s operatives were acting under the direction of Gaza’s Popular Resistance Committee — a coalition of armed terror groups — and another Gaza-based terror group called Shahada Al-Aqsa.

The Shin Bet said the terror operation was masterminded by Ahmed Fathi Omar Hajjaj, an expert bomb-maker who lives in the Gaza.

The Shin Bet said the groups planned a “significant terror attack in Israel” using a bomb hidden in a fire extinguisher. The device was seized before it could be planted in an Israeli city.

The Shin Bet also named four more terror operatives in the Gaza Strip who allegedly assisted in recruiting the West Bank attackers: Maha Ladawi, a resident of the Nuseirat refugee camp; Jihad Ahmed, Sabari Aram and Amin Zakot, residents of the southern Gazan city of Rafiach.

The detained operatives in Yehudah and Shomron were named by the agency as Younis Odeh from the village of al-Ras, Haled Marei from the town of Bal’a, Ahmed Taher Jaradat from the city of Jenin, and Kayes a-Shiab from the city of Qabatiya.