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Sunday, June 29, 2025
Shin Bet says 60 Hamas members nabbed in largest West Bank anti-terror operation in decade
Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
The Shin Bet security agency says it arrested over 60 Hamas operatives in recent months as part of one of the largest crackdowns on a West Bank terror network in recent years.
In a statement, the agency says that in the past three months during joint operations with the IDF and police, “a significant, complex, and large-scale Hamas infrastructure was exposed in Hebron,” accusing those involved of planning a variety of types of attacks “in the immediate time frame.”
“This is the largest and most complex investigation by the Shin Bet in the Judea and Samaria area in the past decade,” a senior Shin Bet official says in a statement, referring to the West Bank.
The Shin Bet says its interrogations found that senior Hamas operatives from the Hebron area, most of whom were formerly jailed by Israel, “worked to recruit, arm, and train additional Hamas operatives from the area to carry out shooting and bombing attacks against Israeli targets.”
“It was also revealed that members of the infrastructure conducted firearms training, gathered intelligence on Israeli targets, manufactured explosive material, and assembled explosive devices, all with the aim of carrying out major attacks on behalf of Hamas” in the West Bank and in Israel, the agency says. No attacks were actually carried out, though some of those arrested were accused of having taken part in a deadly shooting nearly 15 years ago.
Over 60 members of Hamas involved in 10 linked terror cells were detained by Israeli forces, the Shin Bet says. During their interrogations, they provided information that led to even more suspects, though no details are provided about the other arrests.
The Shin Bet says it also captured 22 firearms and 11 grenades, along with other weapons, and large amounts of ammunition. Additionally, an underground arsenal and hideout was uncovered, it says.
Based on information provided under interrogation, some of those arrested are accused of involvement in an August 2010 shooting attack at Bani Naim Junction near Hebron, in which four Israelis — Yitzhak and Tali Ames, and two passengers in their car, Kochava Even Chaim and Avishai Schindler — were murdered.
Additionally, the interrogations led to the arrests of several suspects involved in supplying guns to a Hamas cell that shot and killed Cpl. Avraham Fetena, a Military Police soldier in a November 2023 attack on a West Bank checkpoint on Route 60, south of Jerusalem, the Shin Bet says.
“The exposure of the infrastructure, which operated covertly while maintaining compartmentalization between the different cells, constitutes a significant thwarting of Hamas’s intentions to carry out a series of major attacks in Israel,” the Shin Bet official adds.
Indictments are being filed against the suspects, accusing them of severe crimes, including heading a terror organization, and the equivalent of attempted murder and attempted conspiracy to murder.
The Times of Israel Community.