Israeli security forces recently arrested a Palestinian Hamas terrorist who had threatened to murder Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan, his office confirmed in a statement to JNS on Tuesday.
The terrorist, identified as Karadi Hassan from the village of Qusra in Samaria, was detained at the nearby Migdalim Junction by the Israel Police and Israel Defense Forces soldiers.
“I thank the Central Unit of the police’s Judea and Samaria District, the Ariel police station and the Samaria Brigade [of the IDF],” the regional council head stated, adding: “The Jewish settlement will only grow and strengthen. We will never be afraid. This is our land—and we will win.”
The detention of Hassan reportedly marks the sixth arrest of a terrorist due to threats or plans to assassinate Dagan, who is said to be the most threatened regional council head in the Jewish state. The Samaria leader has been under top-level security for the past three years, reports said.
In 2023, Alaa Khaled Qatto, a member of the Palestinian Authority police from the western Samaria city of Tulkarem, was arrested after a manhunt following threats to Dagan, as well as other terror threats.
Around the same time, Shlomo Ne’eman, who at the time served as the head of the Gush Etzion Regional Council of Judea and led the Yesha Council umbrella group of communities, was assigned a round-the-clock security detail in response to threats “at the highest level.”
A spokesperson for the Gush Etzion Regional Council suggested to JNS at the time that the threats might have been related to Ne’eman’s public opposition to illegal Palestinian construction in the Judean Desert.
Earlier this year, local media reported that Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich was receiving top-level security protection following assassination threats from Palestinian terrorist organizations.
Smotrich, a resident of the western Samaria community of Kedumim, has been accompanied by five guards around the clock, an unprecedented measure for an Israeli Cabinet minister.
