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Security forces arrest 117 Hebron-area Hamas
The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) revealed on Monday that 117 Hamas activists belonging to three separate terror infrastructures in the Hebron area were arrested by security forces. The activists were involved in many attacks, including the abduction and murder of Sasson Nuriel, the suicide bomb attack in the Beersheba bus station in August, and a planned bombing of an air force helicopter at a training base in the Judean desert.A senior Shin Bet official noted that the infrastructures continued to operate intensively despite the tahdiya called in February of this year. They were responsible for the deaths of six Israelis and the wounding of scores. By arresting the operatives, security forces thwarted plans to abduct Israeli hikers in the Judean desert and to abduct and murder soldiers, using them as trading cards to secure the release of Palestinian prisoners. The official noted that for the first time, Hamas in Gaza recruited and trained a female bomb mechanic. She had already been sent to the West Bank to begin training activists before she was arrested. The mechanic, 22-year-old Samir Sabih of Jabalya, received permission to travel from Gaza to Tulkarm by claiming she was going to meet a future fiance. It was there that she was arrested by Israeli security forces. A key commander in one of the arrested infrastructures, Yasser Saleh, was recruited by Gazan Hamas activists at the beginning of 2003, when he was studying in Egypt. Saleh is the son of the Palestinian police commander in Ramallah, an advisor to PA Interior Minister Nasser Yousef. Rest at link. Posted by: ed 2005-10-10 |
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