Police catch 60,000 grenade springs headed to Gaza

Israeli police on Wednesday captured a shipment of 60,000 hand-grenade springs on their way to the Gaza Strip.

The springs were found hidden in a warehouse in the community of Ami’oz on the Gaza periphery. Officials arrested a man in his twenties at the scene as he was loading the springs onto his vehicle.

The man, a resident of the Bedouin town of Rahat, was believed to be on his way to smuggle the equipment into Gaza. He is suspected of procuring the springs illegally from an Israeli factory that produces such springs for the Israeli military. Two other people were arrested as well.

Officials said the man planned to transfer the springs over to terrorists in Gaza, and suspect that he eventually planned to smuggle 500,000 such springs into the Palestinian enclave.

Authorities claimed Wednesday’s catch was indicative of a wider problem in which the transfer of merchandise, aid and equipment into Gaza through Israeli crossings is used to smuggle in weaponry and material used by terrorists.