Israeli security forces on Sunday arrested eight Palestinian students from Birzeit University, located near Ramallah, on suspicion of planning an imminent terror attack.
The terrorists were nabbed following a months-long investigation into Hamas’s efforts to recruit Palestinians at educational institutions, according to the Israel Defense Forces and Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet).
Hamas operatives in the Gaza Strip recruited the students and provided them with weaponry for the intended attack. Some of the would-be terrorists confessed to the plot, Israeli authorities said.
Last week, the deputy chiefs of Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Saleh al-Arouri and Jamil Mazhar, respectively, called for a full-blown intifada, or terror war.
“The Palestinian Authority must return to the intifada to achieve national unity and resolve the Palestinian question on national and democratic grounds,” Israeli media cited them as saying during a meeting in Beirut.
Hamas is simultaneously orchestrating riots along the border with the Gaza Strip, typically involving a few hundred Palestinians throwing explosives and other objects at Israeli forces manning the frontier, as well as burning tires.
