Palestinian detained on Route 6 was planning ‘imminent’ attack with others – Shin Bet
Interrogation of suspect led to arrest of two others at homes in Hebron, where security forces located weapons intended for attack
A Palestinian detained Monday in a suspicious vehicle on a major highway in central Israel was planning an “imminent terror attack” along with two other suspects arrested later in the day in the West Bank, the Shin Bet security agency said.
The suspect had been detained near the Horeshim interchange on Route 6 shortly before 1 p.m. after police officers stopped a minivan carrying 12 other Palestinians, who were all illegally in Israel.
The Shin Bet said that the interrogation of the suspect yielded information that led to the arrest of the two other suspects in their homes in the West Bank town of Bani Naim, near Hebron.
Israeli troops found weapons intended for the alleged attack in their homes, the Shin Bet added. They included an M-16 assault rifle and magazines, according to an image released by the agency.
The suspect detained on Route 6 was unarmed, and no explosives or firearms were found inside the vehicle, though he may have been scheduled to pick up a weapon at another location.
The trio were being questioned by the Shin Bet.
The arrest came amid an increase in terrorist activity in the West Bank, where the army wrapped up a 10-day counterterrorism operation on Saturday.
On Sunday, a Jordanian gunman shot dead three Israeli civilians at the Allenby Bridge border crossing between the West Bank and Jordan.
Channel 12 reported Monday that six weeks earlier, Jordan thwarted a four-person cell near Amman that had been planning to detonate a truck full of explosives at the crossing.
Footage shows the moment several suspects in the vehicle on the Route 6 highway were detained by police. pic.twitter.com/p73Tc2JzEL
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) September 9, 2024
Last Sunday, a Palestinian gunman killed three Israeli police officers in the southern West Bank. The previous Friday night, twin car bombs exploded in the area, lightly injuring one security officer. Hamas claimed the car bombs. The terror group also claimed an attempted suicide bombing in Tel Aviv August 18 — the first suicide bombing in Israel in nearly a decade.
According to Channel 12, Israel’s security chiefs warned the cabinet on Sunday that “what is happening in the West Bank could blow up in all of our faces,” and urged a series of measures to prevent the situation there from diverting troops from Gaza. Some of the terrorist activity in the West Bank was said to be directed by Iran and Hamas in order to harm the war effort in the Strip.
The war in Gaza was sparked when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel on October 7 to kill nearly 1,200 people and take 251 hostages.
