Shin Bet nabs man who allegedly planned to bomb Ashdod hotel
Indictment says Adel Abu Hadayeb, 20, of Rahat was radicalized online by Hamas propaganda, attempted to build bomb and rocket
The Shin Bet security service said Sunday it had caught an Arab Israeli man who was planning to carry out a terror attack in a hotel in support of the Palestinian terror group Hamas.
Adel Abu Hadayeb, 20, of the southern Bedouin town of Rahat, was indicted Sunday in the Beersheba District Court for allegedly planning to bomb the Leonardo Hotel in Ashdod, which was near where he worked as a gardener.
Abu Hadayeb became a supporter of Hamas after being exposed to online propaganda materials for the group, the indictment reads, and had already attempted to construct a bomb for the attack by the time he was arrested last month.
He also attempted to build a rocket, and had purchased some of the materials needed.
After his arrest, he led investigators to a stash of five grenades — two stun grenades, one smoke grenade and two tear-gas grenades — as well as a “Carlo” submachine gun he had collected.
In a statement, the Shin Bet said Abu Hadayeb’s alleged radicalization was part of a trend in which Israeli citizens were being “influenced by Hamas propaganda spread on social networks and through Palestinian media.”
Also Sunday, prosecutors filed an indictment in the Jerusalem District Court against a 17-year-old on charges of contacting and aiding a terror group, arson and illegal weapons manufacture.
According to the indictment, the East Jerusalem youth got in touch with two Gazan Hamas operatives in February through Facebook. The operatives asked the suspect to collect photographs and information on Israeli national security sites. The suspect then collected information on military checkpoints and police stations, and sent the operatives footage from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and other locations.
The suspect was aware that the information was being collected to help the Hamas terror group plan military actions, the indictment says.
The suspect had a brush with Israeli security services in the past, after he prepared and threw firebombs at a Jewish-owned home in the Sheikh Jarah neighborhood in northern Jerusalem in 2017. One of the bombs sparked a fire.
The Times of Israel Community.