Shin Bet busts Lebanon-directed West Bank terror cells; 5 Palestinian suspects indicted

The Shin Bet security agency said on Tuesday that it had foiled a West Bank-based terror network that was being directed by figures in Lebanon with ties to Hamas and Hezbollah.

According to the agency, the network was tasked with photographing an Israeli settlement, and its members underwent firearms training in preparation for carrying out an attack.

Five Palestinians from the West Bank were indicted in the affair.

In October 2025, the Shin Bet said, a Palestinian from the West Bank village of Anza, Mohammad Sadka, was detained on suspicion of planning a terror attack.

The Shin Bet said its interrogation of Sadka revealed that he had traveled to Lebanon, where he was recruited by a Lebanese man, Musa Abu Saif, also known as Jibril, for the purpose of recruiting others for the terror network.

After returning to the West Bank from Lebanon, via Jordan, Sadka “recruited additional operatives to carry out attacks, including Mohammad Khalil, a resident of Ramallah, and Mohammad Barahmeh, a resident of Anza, who were also arrested for Shin Bet questioning,” the agency said.

The Shin Bet said Sadka remained in contact with figures in Lebanon “through correspondence on social networks and via gaming applications.”

At the same time, the Shin Bet said, another terror cell being managed by the same Lebanese figures was also uncovered, and two Palestinians from the village of Tell, Dia a-Din Hamad and Nasser Asida, were arrested.

The agency said its interrogation revealed that those two Palestinians were recruited by a Lebanese terror operative going by the name of Mujahid, alongside other Lebanese figures calling themselves Abu Ahmad and Abu Wahid. The Lebanese figures would maintain contact with the Palestinians on social media, it said.

“As part of their recruitment, the two carried out firearms training in preparation for carrying out an attack, were asked to photograph a community in Samaria [the northern West Bank], and arrangements were made with them for the transfer of funds for the purchase of weapons,” the security agency said.

The Shin Bet said that it emerged from its investigations and intelligence-gathering operations that the head of the framework in Lebanon that worked to recruit the two terror cells is Mujahid Dahsha, “a resident of Lebanon with ties to Hamas and Hezbollah operatives.”

Violence in the West Bank has soared since the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel triggered the two-year Gaza war.

More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces or settlers since the war started, according to the Palestinia Authority health ministry. The IDF says the vast majority of them were gunmen killed in exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops or terrorists carrying out attacks.

During the same period, 65 civilians and Israeli security personnel have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another eight members of the security forces were killed in clashes during raids in Palestinian cities in the West Bank.

The same period has also seen a major surge in attacks by extremist settlers on Palestinians and their property across the West Bank. The IDF recorded 867 incidents of nationalistic crime and settler violence in 2025. The total for 2024 was 682 incidents.