Israeli security forces arrested three members of a Palestinian terror cell that planned to attack Israelis “in the immediate time frame,” the Israel Defense Forces and Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) internal security service stated jointly on Monday night.
Police officers arrested one of the suspects after pulling him over on the busy Route 6 highway near the Horeshim interchange earlier on Monday, per the statement.
The interchange is located near several cities in Israel’s densely-populated coastal plain.
After Shin Bet officers questioned the suspects, Israeli security forces arrested two more members of the terrorist squad at their homes in Bani Na’im, a Palestinian town some five miles east of Hebron in Judea.
“During a search, weapons with which they planned to carry out the attack were found in their possession,” per the official statement on Monday. “The three were transferred to the Shin Bet for further investigation.”
On Sept. 2, Israeli forces neutralized a car bomb near the entrance to the town of Ateret in Binyamin. Security officials believe that the 100-pound explosive was intended to detonate as a school bus passed by.
There were no casualties in the attempted attack, which was a “great miracle,” according to Israel Ganz, the head of the Binyamin Regional Council.
Days earlier, the Hamas terror group praised a “heroic operation” after car bombers wounded three Israelis in Judea’s Gush Etzion area.
Last month, Hamas leader abroad Khaled Mashaal called for a return to suicide attacks against Israeli civilians in Judea and Samaria.
In a video address to a terrorist summit in Istanbul, he said that “resistance operations in the West Bank are escalating despite the harsh conditions,” per CNN.
“We want to return to martyrdom operations,” he added. “This is a situation that can only be addressed by open conflict. They are fighting us with open conflict, and we are confronting them with open conflict.”
On Aug. 19, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for a failed suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. In a statement, Hamas vowed to continue to carry out suicide bombing attacks “as long as Israel continues its massacre and policy of assassinations in Gaza.”
