Ya’alon: Hamas trying to launch ‘serious’ terror attacks

Hamas is attempting to carry out “serious” terror attacks from the West Bank, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon warned Tuesday.

On a visit to the IDF’s Judea Brigade, a regional command in the West Bank north of Jerusalem, Ya’alon spoke about the arrest overnight Monday of 24 members of an alleged Hamas cell in the West Bank city of Qalqilya, near the city of Kfar Saba.

“Those who were arrested in Qalqilya were Hamas operatives directed by Hamas to carry out serious terror attacks,” the defense minister said, “and the security forces of course arrested them before they could carry out their plans.”

Ya’alon was accompanied by Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman MK Tzachi Hanegbi (Likud) and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot.

“Hamas is trying to generate terror attacks in Judea and Samaria” – the official Israeli name for the West Bank – “through incitement and the activation of infrastructures,” Ya’alon said.

The Shin Bet security service said earlier Tuesday that a Hamas cell was uncovered in the West Bank and 24 of its operatives were arrested Monday.

The detainees, who were not named, were apprehended in a joint operation with the Israel Police and Israel Defense Forces, and included “senior Hamas officials, some of whom have been jailed in the past, some more than once, for their Hamas activity, including military activity,” the security agency’s statement said.

According to the Shin Bet, the cell was receiving funding from Hamas leaders in Qatar and the Gaza Strip.

Some NIS 35,000 ($9,000) were also seized in the raid.

The Shin Bet said the incident underlined Hamas’s ongoing efforts to organize cells in the West Bank “with the ultimate goal, among many others, of carrying out attacks and military activities against Israeli targets.”

Hamas responded to the arrests Tuesday, saying they “would not cause the intifada to fail.”

“It only drives us to continue to make Israel pay for its crimes,” the terror group said.