Security forces detain Hamas operative involved in deadly shooting attack in Jordan Valley

Members of police’s elite Yamam counter-terrorism unit and the Shin Bet security agency detained this evening a Hamas terrorist who was part of a cell that carried out a deadly shooting attack in the Jordan Valley in the summer, Israeli defense authorities say.

Ayman Ghanem was arrested by Israeli special forces who raided a hospital in the West Bank city of Nablus this evening.

According to the Shin Bet, police, and IDF, Ghanem was the third member of a Hamas cell that carried out a shooting attack on August 11 at the Mehola Junction on Route 90, the main north-south artery in the Jordan Valley, killing Yonatan Deutsch, 23, and wounding Anas Jaramana, 32.

Since the deadly attack, Ghanem continued to advance attacks as the head of a terror cell, and he posed a threat, Israeli authorities say.

Ghanem had been wounded in an Israeli drone strike yesterday near the West Bank village of Aqabah. The strike killed three other Hamas gunmen who the military said were planning “imminent attacks.”

After being wounded in the strike, Ghanem was taken to a hospital in Nablus, where he was nabbed this evening by the special forces.

The joint police, Shin Bet and IDF statement says the operation was carefully planned, “with the aim of preventing harm to patients and medical staff at the hospital.”

The military also reveals that on October 9, a Palestinian gunman named Abd al-Arouf Masri who was killed in an exchange of fire in the Jordan Valley, also participated in the August terror attack.

Earlier this week, the head of the Hamas cell behind the attack, Wael Lahlouh, was killed in an IDF drone strike near Jenin alongside three other gunmen.