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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Hamas renegade in Gaza behind West Bank terror cell busted Wednesday, Palestinians say |
| 2015-12-25 |
| [IsraelTimes] Fathi Hamad, former interior minister known as one of the most radical figures in terror group, funded and trained cell; is in touch with IS in Sinai The man behind a Hamas terror cell uncovered by the Shin Bet domestic security agency in the West Bank is former Hamas interior minister Fathi Hamad, Palestinian officials told The Times of Israel Wednesday. Hamad, considered one of the strongest Hamas figures in the Gaza Strip, often operates independently of the organization’s political branch. Hamad was instrumental in pushing the “West Bank branch” terror cell of suicide bombers, directed by him and other Hamas figures in Gaza, according to sources. On Wednesday, Israeli officials from the Shin Bet security service announced they had busted a Hamas terror ring in the Palestinian town of Abu Dis planning suicide bombings and other attacks. The use of suicide bombings by Hamas have not been seen since the Second Intifada over a decade ago, and it remains unclear how other Hamas officials treated Hamad’s initiative. “The West Bank branch” was founded by officials in Hamas’s military wing, and is comprised of former prisoners released in the 2011 Gilad Shalit swap that were deported to the Gaza Strip. Heading the branch is Abd el-Rahman Animath, of the Tzurif cell that kidnapped IDF soldier Sharon Edri, and Mazen Fuqah, a former Jenin resident who was responsible for suicide bombings during the Second Intifada. Hamad is well-known as one of the most radical figures in Hamas today. He is suspected of a string of bombings near the houses of Fatah operatives, and is thought to be in contact with Salafi organizations and Islamic State fighters in the Sinai Peninsula. He assists the “West Bank branch” both with funding and military instruction. While the Shin Bet released information on the busted terror cell on Wednesday, details of the group have reached the Palestinian Authority over a week ago. Hamad is also one of the central figures opposing reconciliation with the PA. As part of his role in the Hamas government, he was responsible for its security services in Gaza and is influential within the Hamas military wing. The Shin Bet, alongside the IDF and Israel Police, have thus far arrested 25 Hamas operatives, the majority of them students at Al-Quds University in Abu Dis, who they suspect were preparing to attack Israeli targets, the agency said in a statement. The arrests were carried out over the past few weeks. The service also uncovered a makeshift laboratory in Abu Dis, in East Jerusalem, which was being used to create the explosives necessary for bombing attacks. It said the cell was controlled by Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip. “This case reveals and highlights again the involvement of the military arm of Hamas from the Gaza Strip, which operates continuously with the intent of carrying out mass-casualty attacks within Israel and the West Bank,” the Shin Bet said in a statement. Hamas cell planned suicide and car bombings, Shin Bet reveals [IsraelTimes] The Shin Bet uncovered a large Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, terror cell, among whose members were Israeli citizens, which planned to carry out suicide kabooms and other terror attacks in Israel, the security service revealed on Wednesday. The PA's warning was based on information gleaned from interrogations of Hamas operatives tossed in the calaboose Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! by PA security services, which showed that the terror group's leaders in Gazoo and abroad have sent orders to local commanders to escalate their activities -- from encouraging protests and stabbing attacks to more dramatic and deadly assaults on Israeli civilians. The ringleader of this terror plot uncovered by the Shin Bet was 24-year-old Ahmad Jamal Mousa Azzam from Qalqilya in the West Bank. Azzam was recruited by Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, operatives from the Gazoo Strip in order to set up a terror cell in the West Bank. The 24-year-old remained in constant contact with his controllers in the Strip, the Shin Bet said. Hamas taught Azzam, a student from Al-Quds University in Abu Dis with campuses in east Jerusalem and al-Birah, how to create boom belts and vests, as well as improvised explosive devises which could be used against both civilians and security forces. Once he became a member of Hamas, Azzam recruited other students from his university who assisted him in every aspect of the plot, from renting apartments to use as laboratories to purchasing the chemicals and materials necessary to create the explosives, as well as volunteering to act as jacket wallahs in the planned attacks, according to the Shin Bet. Two of the people Azzam recruited were Israeli citizens who would be able to move more freely within Israel than West Bank Paleostinians. Hazem Ziad Amran Sandouqa, a 22-year-old resident of Jerusalem's Old City, purchased some of the materials necessary to create the explosives and also provided intelligence on potential Israeli targets. Fahdi Daoud Muhammad Abu Qaian, a 19-year-old Bedouin Israeli from the Negev, agreed to actually carry out an attack, the Shin Bet said. During Abu Qaian's interrogation he revealed to officers that he had accepted Azzam's request in October to either carry out a suicide kaboom with an explosive vest or drive an exploding car into some Israeli target. The two Israeli citizens also confessed to the Shin Bet that they support the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... and other Salafi terrorist groups. In addition to those directly involved in carrying out the attacks, the Shin Bet also found others who assisted Azzam in purchasing the materials necessary. Some of the chemicals and equipment found in the laboratory were purchased within Israel, the service found, while others were purchased in the West Bank city of Ramallah. "In our checks of the materials and equipment that were seized in that location, it became clear that this was a laboratory that was prepared to create meaningful quantities of different kinds of explosive materials,” the security service said. In addition to the Abu Dis terror cell, the Shin Bet also busted a Bethlehem-based group that was also associated with Azzam. Some of its members also came from Al-Quds University in Abu Dis, and were recruited in order to serve as suicide bombers, the agency said. Issa Nasser Issa Shoka, a 19-year-old student at Al-Quds University in Abu Dis, agreed to carry out a suicide kaboom and also to help Azzam transfer money between the West Bank and Gazoo. Shoka acted as one of the leaders of the Bethlehem cell, recruiting Muhammad Waleed Ahmad Sarhkhan, 20, as well as Muhammad Na'im Issa Ali, 19, to carry out a suicide kaboom and other attacks, the Shin Bet said. "The planned wave of terror attacks proves that Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,, led by its military wing, has removed itself from the terrible distress of the population of the [Gazoo] Strip," the agency added. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #4 The world professes to love the Palestinians Especially Europe---and now they got their own. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2015-12-25 12:27 |
| #3 They love them far far away. Just not as close neighbors. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2015-12-25 11:58 |
| #2 Why not force Hamas to surrender b y turning off the water and electricity and closing all entry points until it surrenders, The world professes to love the Palestinians, Grins Snese4215, and would not allow it. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2015-12-25 11:55 |
| #1 Hamas controls Gaza and must take responsibility for the welfare of its people. Yet despite Hamas unrelenting hostility Israel persists in supplying electricity and water to Gaza and in allow transportation into it. Why not force Hamas to surrender b y turning off the water and electricity and closing all entry points until it surrenders, The terms of surrender should be arrest of all militants, and supervised disarmament. If Hamas decides to fight, respond, but allow no external supply of any kind. |
| Posted by: Grins Snese4215 2015-12-25 01:07 |