Two minors from central Israel charged with planning terror attack on troops
In joint statement, Israel Police and Shin Bet say young suspects from so-called Triangle region learned about explosives, watched training videos, had radios, vests, chemicals
The Shin Bet and Israel Police arrested two minors on suspicion of planning to carry out a terror attack on Israeli security forces, the two bodies announced in a joint statement on Thursday.
Both of the defendants are residents of the so-called Triangle region southeast of Haifa, near the Palestinian city of Jenin, which includes 14 towns and villages where more than 260,000 Arab Israelis live.
One of the defendants, who recruited the second suspect, was said to have been trained in bombmaking. The two were found to be in possession of chemical explosives, vests, and radios.
He also tried to recruit additional members to the terror cell, according to the police and Shin Bet statement, which added that the two had watched training videos on making explosives and carrying out attacks.
The suspects were arrested for questioning in recent months, and an indictment was filed against them, according to the statement.
Central District Police Commander Chief Superintendent Yair Hatzroni decried the “grave security issue” of “Israeli minors promoting terror activists against innocent people and the very security forces protecting them.”
He lauded the joint Israel Police-Shin Bet operation for preventing a “major disaster and saving lives.”
“We will continue to act resolutely, under the authority afforded to us by law, and will use all of the means at our disposal to thwart in advance any attempt to harm the security of the State of Israel and its citizens,” he added in the statement.
The announcement came two days after the police and the Shin Bet said that joint forces had arrested over 60 operatives from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terror group organization in counterterror operations in the West Bank and Lebanon.
Tensions have been high since the war in Gaza erupted after Hamas’s brutal October 7, 2023, massacre, which saw some 3,000 terrorists burst across the border into Israel, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages, mostly civilians, many amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.
Since then, 41 people, including Israeli security personnel, have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another six members of the security forces were killed in clashes with terror operatives in the West Bank.
Emanuel Fabian contributed to this report.
