Hamas man held for Sinai terror-kidnap plot

A Palestinian from Rafah in Gaza was arrested three weeks ago for planning a terrorist infiltration from the Sinai into Israel, Israel’s Shin Bet security service revealed on Wednesday. The suspect was brought to a hearing at Beersheba District Court on Wednesday morning.

The man, Muhammad Abu Adra, is a member of Hamas’s military wing and is suspected of planning to kidnap a soldier and carry out an attack near Eilat.

Israel Radio reported that Abu Adra had crossed the border from Gaza to Sinai in order to gather intelligence about IDF activities in the area surrounding the Taba Border Crossing, and was arrested after his return. Several other people were involved in the planning, the Shin Bet indicated, but no specifics were given.

A report by Maariv said anti-tank rockets were to be used in the attack, a strategy that was used to attack Israeli civilians near Eilat in August. Eight people were killed in that incident.

Among those who orchestrated last August’s attack was Zuhair al-Qaissi, the head of the Popular Resistance Committees in Gaza who was killed in his car in Gaza City in an Israeli airstrike on March 9 — a strike that set off several days of intensive cross-border hostilities. Israeli officials said al-Qaissi was planning another imminent major infiltration from the Sinai. It was not immediately clear Wednesday whether Abu Adra was connected to that terror plot.