Security forces seize cash bound for teen terrorist’s family
IDF says Hamas funds likely earmarked for rebuilding home of Morad Adais, demolished after he stabbed Dafna Meir to death
Israeli security forces seized tens of thousands of shekels early Thursday in the area of the southern West Bank village of Yatta, saying the money was destined for the family of a Palestinian teenager who stabbed an Israeli woman to death in her West Bank home.
The Israel Defense Forces said NIS 48,000 ($13,500) from the Hamas terror group was likely meant to rebuild the family house of Morad Bader Abdullah Adais in Yatta, destroyed by Israel after Adais killed Dafna Meir at the entrance to her home in the nearby settlement of Otniel.
Adais was 16-years-old at the time of the January 2016 stabbing.
He waited for Meir, a mother of six, to come out of her front door and then attacked her, “plunging the knife into her stomach,” according to his indictment.
He then tried to retrieve the weapon in order to attack Meir’s children, who were inside, but Meir wrestled with him and prevented him from doing so, forcing him to flee the scene.
Meir was critically wounded and later died of her injuries.
According to the charge sheet, after fleeing Otniel, Adais returned home, washed the blood off his arms, and watched a movie with his family.
Following his capture, a military court convicted Adais and sentenced him to life imprisonment for a murder perpetrated “with abnormal cruelty and in cold blood.”
Also overnight, security forces confiscated thousands of shekels in nearby Hebron that the army said belonged to an unauthorized charity with ties to Hamas.
The IDF said the twin operations were meant to dry up funding for terror attacks and the families of terrorists.
Separately, eight Palestinians were arrested during raids through the West Bank early Thursday, five of them for violent rioting and “popular terrorism,” a catch-all term for rock throwing and violent protests.
