IDF raids Palestinian publisher, seizes ‘inciting material’

Israeli security forces descended on a Palestinian publishing house in the West Bank village of Bani Na’im overnight Sunday-Monday, confiscating equipment, propaganda for a Fatah terror organization as well as material that incited violence against Israelis, the IDF said in a statement Monday.

The raids came in response to a sharp uptick in terror attacks in recent days, specifically Friday’s car-ramming attack outside the Kiryat Arba settlement next to Hebron, the army said.

Flags of the Fatah terror wing, office equipment and “inciting materials” found at the Hebron-area publishing house were seized by the IDF and Israel Police.

In the nearby villages of Sa’ir and Beit Ummar, Israeli troops searched the homes of Palestinian assailants who recently perpetrated attacks against Israelis in an effort “to prevent the forming of additional attackers.”

In separate overnight raids across the West Bank, security forces also uncovered two guns, a pipe bomb and thousands of shekels in cash. They also arrested 10 Palestinian terror suspects.

A search of a home in a village near Bethlehem turned up a handgun, a makeshift rifle, a pipe bomb and more than NIS 130,000 ($3,500) in cash, which, according to the army, were being held in preparation for a terror attack.

Three of the men arrested were described as Hamas members, and one was said to belong to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group.

Another six were detained for “terrorist activities and violent riots against citizens and security forces,” the army said.

The suspects, seized cash and weapons were handed over to security forces for further investigation.

On Monday morning, two Israeli police officers were wounded in a stabbing attack outside Jerusalem’s Old City, as the fresh wave of attacks in the capital and the West Bank appeared to persist for a fourth straight day.

A female officer, aged approximately 20, was seriously wounded in the assault. A 45-year-old male officer was moderately wounded, according to the Magen David Adom ambulance service.

The assailant — identified by police as a 20-year-old resident of East Jerusalem’s Ras al-Amoud neighborhood — was shot and critically wounded, according to police.

Six attacks over the weekend — four stabbings, a car ramming and a rock throwing — caught many Israelis by surprise, as the violence that marked 2015 and early 2016 appeared to have waned in recent months, and raised fears that regular attacks could return.

In the past year, Israel saw a wave of so-called “lone-wolf” Palestinian terror attacks, which have claimed the lives of 35 Israelis and four foreign nationals since October 2015. Some 227 Palestinians have also been killed in the past year, with the Israeli army and police saying that most of those killed were attackers or involved in clashes with security forces.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel was boosting security ahead of the upcoming Jewish High Holidays “in order to ensure that we will be ready to defend our people during this sensitive period.”

Judah Ari Gross contributed to this report.