Israel security forces arrested 16 terrorists across Judea and Samaria overnight Wednesday, while killing one Palestinian gunman and thwarting potential terror attacks by seizing weapons and explosive devices, the IDF said on Thursday.
In the northern Samaria terrorist hotbed of Jenin, soldiers arrested seven wanted persons. During the operation, which took place in the city and its adjacent “refugee camp,” Combat Engineering Corps troops disabled numerous explosives that were buried under roads in an effort to kill Israelis.
Soldiers engaged in firefights with Palestinian terrorists in Jenin and subsequently confiscated their rifles, the army said.
Meanwhile, undercover units of the Israel Border Police in the village of Bir al-Basha, located some nine miles southwest of Jenin, operated to arrest two suspects in a previous shooting attack on Israeli forces. One of the suspects was killed in a firefight, while the other one was detained.
Two wanted Palestinians were arrested in Nablus (the biblical city of Shechem). Troops also discovered a 3D printer used to manufacture makeshift weapons, the IDF said.
In Bethlehem and Harmala, both located south of Jerusalem in Judea, soldiers of the elite Duvdevan undercover commando unit arrested two suspects.
Since Hamas launched its war against the Jewish state on Oct. 7, 2,700 terrorism suspects have been arrested throughout Judea and Samaria, including at least 1,300 who are associated with Hamas.
Between Oct. 7 and Jan. 15 alone, the Hatzalah Judea and Samaria rescue group recorded more than 2,600 terrorist attacks against Israelis in the area, including 760 cases of rock-throwing, 551 fire bombings, 12 attempted or successful stabbings and nine vehicular assaults.
Earlier this week, the IDF demolished the Samaria home of a Hamas terrorist who acted as an accomplice to the murder of four Israelis, including two minors, in a shooting attack near the Jewish community of Eli in Samaria last year.
Bassel Shehadeh has been indicted on suspicion of supplying the firearms used in the attack. Overnight Tuesday, troops razed Shehadeh’s residence in the village of Urif, south of Nablus.
On Sunday, IDF soldiers operating in Hebron destroyed the homes of two Hamas terrorists responsible for the Nov. 16 attack at the “tunnel road” checkpoint between Gush Etzion and Jerusalem in which IDF soldier Cpl. Avraham Fetena was killed and five others were wounded.
The IDF this week also announced its intention to destroy the house of Abdullah Massad, a Hamas terrorist who was involved in the August 2023 shooting attack in Huwara in which father and son Shay Silas Nigrekar and Aviad Nir were murdered.
