A Palestinian teenager gets weapons training at a Hamas military summer camp in Gaza City. (AP/Khalil Hamra)
Two Palestinian minors were arrested after a Hamas agent in Gaza signed them up to carry out terrorist attacks in Judea and Samaria
By Paul Shindman, World Israel News
Two Palestinian teenagers were arrested and charged with terrorist offenses after it was discovered that they had been recruited by the Hamas terror group in Gaza to carry out attacks against Israelis in the area south of Jerusalem, the General Security Service said Monday.
The GSS, Israel’s equivalent of the FBI, issued a statement that the two minors were arrested in October after being scouted and recruited by Hamas on social media. The security agency often delays release of information during the initial phases of investigations.
According to the GSS, the two were recruited by a Hamas operative named Balal Kardi, who lives in the Gaza Strip and is a member of the terror group’s cyber unit. The investigation showed that the two were expected to receive weapons, ammunition, uniforms and money that would be used in the attacks.
The two recruits even tried to manufacture their own pipe bombs, but the investigation showed that they did not manage to produce any bombs of quality.
Hamas promised that in return for their actions, youth would receive sums of money and a commitment that Hamas in the Gaza Strip would take responsibility for their actions.
As well, the two were also asked to scout for possible locations to abduct Israeli citizens near their place of residence, apparently in one of the villages in the Gush Etzion bloc south of Jerusalem.
The two, one of whom is only 16, were asked to gather intelligence about nearby Israeli towns and provide photographs of the town of Bat Ayin and Kibbutz Kfar Etzion, along with maps and gathering points of IDF forces in the area.
That is the exact same area where three Israeli high school students were kidnapped and murdered by Hamas in 2014, sparking Operation Protective Edge – a seven-week conflict in which Hamas and other terror groups fired almost 5,000 rockets and mortars at Israel.
Indictments against the two were filed this month in the Military Juvenile Court in Judea, the GSS said.
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