IDF on high alert in Hebron following terror warning
Two Palestinians, including cousin of one of the two murderers of 3 teens this summer, missing since Friday, feared planning attack
The IDF said Monday that its troops in the Hebron area were put on high alert over the past several days following intelligence assessments indicating that a terror attack may be imminent.
Two Palestinian men have been missing from their homes since Friday, according to Israel Radio, one of them a cousin of Amer Abu Aysha, one of the two kidnappers and murderers of three Israeli teenagers this June.
The names of the two Palestinians who’ve disappeared in recent days were not disclosed in the report.
Abu Aysha and Marwan Kawasme, both from Hebron, were part of a Hamas-affiliated cell that kidnapped Eyal Yifrah, 19, Naftali Fraenkel, 16, and Gilad Shaar, 16, from a hitchhiking post near Hebron on June 12 and then murdered them.
The attack set off Israel’s Operation Brother’s Keeper which was aimed at finding the yeshiva students and dealing a blow to Hamas’s infrastructure in the West Bank, which Israel accused of being behind the operation. The bodies of the three teens were found on June 30 in a shallow grave on a plot of land belonging to the Kawasme clan.
Hamas denied any involvement but praised the attack. Both the Kawasme and Abu Aysha families have deep ties to Hamas, Israeli officials repeatedly said.
Kawasme, 29, was arrested on a number of occasions for his involvement in Hamas activities, including in 2010 when he was identified as a member of a terror cell responsible for an attack that killed four civilians in Beit Hagai in August 2010, according to the Shin Bet.
Abu Aysha, 32, spent time in prison from 2005 to 2006 for his involvement in Hamas activities.
Kawasme’s brother, Hussam, was arrested on July 11 for masterminding the operation, including planning it and buying the plot of land where the three teens were buried. He was indicted in September.
Abu Aysha and Kawasme went missing from their homes days before the kidnapping and murder. Both were killed in September, after a three-month manhunt, during an IDF attempt to capture them.
The abduction and killing sparked a summer of rising tensions that climaxed with Operation Protective Edge, the 50-day war between Israel and Hamas in and around the Gaza Strip.
