Israeli security personnel killed two senior members of a Hamas terrorist cell in the western Samaria city of Tulkarem on Monday.
Jihad Shahada and Izz al-Din Awad operated under the direction of Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip, Army Radio reported.
The cell carried out shooting attacks in Judea and Samaria and had plans to carry out additional attacks, added the report. According to Israeli security sources, the terrorist squad received hundreds of thousands of shekels to finance its activities.
Since the beginning of Israel’s war with Hamas on Oct. 7, Israeli forces have arrested more than 1,350 wanted Palestinians throughout Judea and Samaria, 850 of whom are affiliated with the terrorist group.
Thirty-eight Palestinians, including five affiliated with Hamas, were arrested overnight Sunday in counterterror operations. The Israel Defense Forces said it sealed off three printing houses in and around Hebron that had produced pro-Hamas incitement.
Police also arrested 23 terrorism suspects in Jerusalem’s Shuafat neighborhood and in the town of Anata northeast of the capital on Sunday night.
Alleged offenses included involvement in violent disturbances in recent weeks, including throwing stones and fire bombs. Others were arrested on suspicion of publishing incitement to violence and terrorism and supporting Hamas.
One suspect was arrested for funding the riots that took place in the weeks after Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre, during which Palestinian death squads rampaged through western Negev communities, murdering 1,400 people, wounding thousands more and taking more than 240 hostages back to Gaza.
