Israel has arrested three suspects in the Nazareth area for plotting to carry out terrorist attacks, Israeli authorities announced on Monday.
Indictments were due to be filed on Monday in the Nazareth District Court.
An investigation by the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) and Israel Police found that the three suspects, an adult and two minors, had produced firebombs which they planned to use against Israeli security forces.
The adult was identified as Mobin Ahmed Younes, a 19-year-old resident of Reina, an Arab village adjacent to Nazareth. The minors were only identified as from northern Israel.
Younes frequented the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount during Ramadan and participated rallies while wearing the Hamas flag. He was also filmed inside Al Aqsa expressing his identification with the terrorist group, according to the indictment.
Tensions on the Temple Mount were high during Ramadan, which overlapped with the week-long Jewish Passover holiday. Palestinians barricaded inside the Al Aqsa Mosque were evacuated by police.
In another case, one of the suspects was photographed on the roof of a house in his village holding a weapon and wrapped in Hamas flags.
The indictments added that all three had read material produced by Hamas.
Palestinian terror groups are known for exploiting social media to recruit children.
“The terrorist organization Hamas continues to work to spread its ideology among the citizens of the State of Israel and its residents and, among other things, works to recruit them through propaganda distributed on the Temple Mount and on social networks, with the aim of promoting terrorist activity in Israel,” the Shin Bet said in a statement announcing the arrests.
