A monthslong joint operation by the Shin Bet security agency, the Israel Police, and the IDF has exposed an extensive terrorist network that the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine had established throughout Judea and Samaria, the Shin Bet announced Wednesday.
The Judea and Samaria network operated under the leadership of senior PFLP members who directed the attacks that the various cells carried out.
Members of the PFLP are responsible for the terrorist bombing at the Danny Spring near Dolev that killed Rina Shnerb, 17, this past August, and left her father and brother seriously wounded.
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Members of the PFLP network arrested in the course of the operation include the head of the cell that perpetrated the attack that took Shnerb's life: Samer Arbid of Ramallah, who has already been in prison for terrorist activity on behalf of the organization. Arbid enlisted the other members of the cell, built, and set off the improvised bomb. Arbid was arrested along with Yazan Maghamas, 24, who was involved in several other attacks, and Qassem Shibli, 25, from the "terror village" of Kobar, who also carried out a number of shooting attacks.
When members of the Judea and Samaria network were interrogated, they revealed that it was behind a number of shooting attacks and was in the process of planning large-scale attacks for the near future. Israeli security personnel arrested some 50 members, including a senior official in the PFLP in Judea and Samaria, and seized a large stock of weapons that the terrorists had been holding.
The Shin Bet seized M16s and other types of assault rifles, handguns, silencers, and various types of fertilizer intended to be used in building bombs, as well as ammunition. Security personnel also found radios and batteries to be used to detonate explosives remotely. Much of the weapons had been stored in the home of a relative of Arbid.
The detainees provided the Shin Bet with information about the attacks that they had been planning and detailed the process of planning and executing the lethal Danny Spring attack. Cell members told investigators that they had begun collecting intelligence a few weeks before the attack and had visited the spring several times to scout the territory. Arbid reviewed and approved the final plan.
The interrogation also exposed additional acts of terrorism for which the PFLP in Judea and Samaria was responsible, including a shooting attack on an Israeli bus near the settlement of Ofra in December 2017 and a shooting attack on an Israeli car near Ariel in March of this year.
Many of the detainees have been indicted on serious charges, with more indictments expected to be filed.
A senior Shin Bet official said that the intelligence and investigative work had "thwarted terrorist attacks slated to be carried out in the near future."
According to the official, if the Shin Bet and the rest of the security forces had not managed to put their hands on the cell members, the planned attacks would have claimed numerous Israeli lives.
"The Shin Bet investigation exposed the real and present danger from Popular Front [terrorist] activity, as well as the security danger from the Popular Front's 'organizational' activity. The amount of weapons seized and the information we gained in the interrogation highlight how dangerous this network is and how prepared [they are] to carry out more, deadly terrorist attacks," he said.
