From the Liveblog of
Sunday, May 4, 2025
3 men jailed for terror attack plots, including plan to assassinate Ben Gvir with rocket-propelled grenade
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
A Beersheba court sentences three men to three and a half years in prison for plotting a series of terror attacks in Israel — including a plan to assassinate National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir with a rocket-propelled grenade.
Last April, the Shin Bet security agency announced that it had foiled plans by a cell of Arab Israelis and West Bank Palestinians to carry out terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank, including assassinating Ben Gvir.
According to the Shin Bet, the cell planned attacks against IDF bases and other sensitive sites, including Ben Gurion Airport and the government complex in Jerusalem.
The men, two from the Bedouin city of Rahat in the northern Negev and one from the West Bank, received lighter sentences after reaching a plea bargain in which the charges against them were downgraded from “conspiracy to aid the enemy” to “disclosure of a decision to betray.”
Following the sentencing, Ben Gvir decries the plea agreement as a “disgrace” and accuses the state prosecutor of “endangering him and all the ministers of the government of Israel.”
Ben Gvir asserts that such a move “sends a message encouraging terrorism: Continue to try to carry out assassinations and damage symbols of government – and you will get away with it cheaply.”
“The absurdity is doubly serious when you realize that no one bothered to talk to me before the [plea] agreement, and did not accept my position – contrary to the law. This is not harm to me personally, but to the entire country,” Ben Gvir says in a statement.
The Times of Israel Community.