In sixth incident in months, Palestinians caught trying to bomb court

Security forces on Sunday foiled an attempt to smuggle two pipe bombs into the Samaria Military Court, in the latest of a spate of attempted bombings at the West Bank facility.

Two Palestinians, both 16-year-old residents of Jenin, were detained by Border Police guards at the security checkpoint at the entrance to the court, a police statement said.

Each of them was hiding a pipe bomb on his body, and both were taken for questioning, the statement continued.

The suspects were also found to each be holding a lighter, with which officers suspect they intended to ignite the bombs.

The entrance to the court was temporarily blocked while a sapper inspected the devices, which contained explosives, and neutralized them.

The Samaria Military Court has been targeted repeatedly in the past few months by Palestinians carrying pipe bombs.

On February 14, Border Police guards arrested three Palestinians who were attempting to smuggle the explosive devices into the building, in an incident that closed the facility for several hours while security forces disarmed the bombs and checked the suspects for hidden devices.

A day earlier, a Palestinian man was stopped as he tried to smuggle a pipe bomb packed with metal shards from knives into the same courthouse.

A week earlier, a man was stopped under very similar circumstances as he tried to smuggle a pipe bomb into the military court.

On December 28, Border Police officers arrested a 16-year-old Palestinian teen who was carrying a pipe bomb as he entered the court.

Less than two weeks earlier, police arrested a Palestinian man who tried to enter the same military court with two pipe bombs.