IDF says 5 Palestinians planning attack arrested in West Bank commando raid
Soldiers find weapons, ammunition and military gear hidden by suspects; army says 10 others arrested and weapons-making equipment seized in separate Nablus raid
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleEmanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
Israel Defense Forces commandos captured five Palestinians in a raid in the West Bank town of Qabatiya on Friday, who the military said were planning a terror attack.
The military said soldiers of the Duvdevan Commando Unit raided Qabatiya at dawn following intelligence provided by the Shin Bet on a cell of five Palestinian terrorists “who planned to carry out an attack against Israeli civilians and security forces.”
The commandos captured the five Palestinians “less than 10 minutes” after they entered the locations where they were suspected to be, the IDF said. The suspects were then taken for Shin Bet questioning.
There were no reports of injuries.
The IDF said the commandos also searched the terrorists’ homes, during which the military said it located an assault rifle, ammunition and military gear that the men had hidden.
Meanwhile, the military said Friday that it had wrapped up a separate 48-hour counterterror operation in and around Nablus in the northern West Bank, where it arrested 10 Palestinian suspects and seized weapons manufacturing tools.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the IDF for the raid in Nablus, saying, “I congratulate our forces on a successful operation in Samaria [the biblical name for the northern West Bank], in which they destroyed dozens of workshops for the production of weapons, seized dozens of weapons, and arrested wanted individuals involved in terrorism.”
The military said that IDF forces, guided by the Shin Bet, “searched hundreds of locations, questioned dozens of suspects and arrested more than 10 wanted individuals.”
Troops destroyed more than 30 lathes used to manufacture weapons and also seized rifles, handguns and ammunition.
Violence in the West Bank has escalated sharply in recent months, mostly involving settler attacks on Palestinians, though there have also been several attacks by Palestinian assailants on Israelis. Critics accuse the IDF and Netanyahu’s government of condoning or even encouraging the violence by Israelis against Palestinians.
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