Gaza resident arrested after crossing into Israel with grenade, knife

Palestinian suspected of planning terror attack; second Gazan who crossed the border fence also detained in apparently unrelated incident

File: The border fence along the Israel-Gaza border, August 10, 2014 (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)
File: The border fence along the Israel-Gaza border, August 10, 2014 (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

The IDF arrested two Palestinians early Sunday after they separately crossed the border fence from the Gaza Strip into Israel, one of them carrying weapons.

The military said in a statement that troops apprehended the two Gazans shortly after they had crossed the fence.

One was found carrying a grenade and a knife. The army said he is suspected of planning to carry out a terror attack in Israel.

One of the suspects is from the north of the Strip while the other was from the south.

The army said the two incidents appeared unrelated due to the different locations.

The two were transferred to security forces for interrogation, likely by the Shin Bet security service.

Gazans are apprehended crossing into Israel fairly regularly, many of them apparently seeking to escape an increasingly difficult humanitarian situation in the Strip. Suspects are believed to sometimes carry weapons in the hopes of being sent to Israeli prison rather than back to the Palestinian enclave.

In the West Bank overnight, troops apprehended four terror suspects in overnight raids, and conducted a “major” operation that netted  Palestinians suspects illegally crossing into Israeli territory, the army said.

Forces also caught three Palestinians with Molotov cocktails near a road where Israelis commonly drive, with the IDF saying it was checking whether they had thrown firebombs at passing vehicles in several instances over the past month.

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