world

Terrorist Plot

Hamas in West Bank "planned to topple Palestinian Authority."

Yaakov Lappin

There are 93 Hamas members in Israeli
custody, of whom 46 have been questioned
by the Shin Bet so far. Security forces plan
to indict some 70 suspects.
The investigation began in May and is
ongoing, security sources said.
Approximately $600,000 has been seized
by the Shin Bet, as well as 30 firearms,
seven rocket launchers and large amounts
of ammunition. Security sources stressed
that the plot was uncovered at an early
stage.
The Shin Bet named senior Hamas
leader Salah al-Aruri, who is based in
Turkey, as the mastermind behind the ter-
rorist plot.
Aruri, originally from a village in the
West Bank, spent years in prison for ter-
rorism offenses and left the region in
March 2010, as part of an agreement with
Israel.
He has since served as the head of the
West Bank sector in Hamas' overseas wing.
"It is one of the biggest we've seen in
Judea and Samaria since Hamas' formation
in 1987:' a senior Shin Bet source, respon-
sible for securing the Jerusalem district,
told reporters on Monday.

Jerusalem Post

A

large-scale Hamas terrorist for-
mation in the West Bank and
Jerusalem planned to destabilize
the region through a series of deadly ter-
rorist attacks in Israel and then topple the
Fatah-ruled Palestinian Authority, the Shin
Bet (Israel Security Agency) said Monday.
The plot was orchestrated by overseas
Hamas operatives headquartered in Turkey
and centered on a string of mass-casualty
terrorist attacks on Israeli targets, the Shin
Bet added.
The end goal was to destabilize the
Palestinian territories and use the insta-
bility to carry out a military coup, over-
throwing the government of P.A. President
Mahmoud Abbas.
The Hamas infrastructure relied on
support from cells in neighboring Jordan
and on couriers who delivered funding
that totaled at least NIS 2 million (about
$571,000).
This was used to purchase weapons and
homes that were used as hideouts, accord-
ing to the investigation.

A second Shin Bet source said the inves-
tigation serves as a warning over Hamas'
designs to replace the P.A.
The infrastructure's local nerve center
was in Ramallah, where the P.A. is based,
but cells branched out throughout 46
Palestinian cities, towns and villages.
Khaled Mashaal, Hamas' overseas leader
in Qatar, was aware of the plot, the sources
said, though there was no involvement
from Hamas in Gaza.

'Third Intifada'

"The terrorists planned to undermine
security and launch a third intifada. They
planned disturbances on the Temple
Mount to rile the Palestinian masses. They
were waiting for talks between Israel and
P.A. to collapse the source said.
Hamas recruited many members,
including students and academics, par-
ticularly those studying chemistry and
engineering.
The terrorist cells allegedly kept in
contact with Hamas members in Jordan,
including Uda Zaharan, who originally
hails from the West Bank and who moved
to Jordan in 2006.

Zaharan maintained a system of couri-
ers connecting various Hamas branches
in Turkey, Jordan and the West Bank and
transferred hundreds of thousands of
dollars via multiple smuggling runs to
operatives in the West Bank.
Saleh Brakat, an Israeli citizen from Beit
Safafa in southern Jerusalem, was arrested
on July 1 for allegedly transferring opera-
tional messages from Hamas in Jerusalem
to members of the terrorist organization
who were overseas.
"The exposure of this infrastructure,
one of the largest we have encountered,
underlines the high danger posed by
Hamas' overseas headquarters:' the Shin
Bet said in a statement.
The investigation uncovered deep ties
between Hamas operatives in Turkey and
operatives in Judea and Samaria, as well
as Hamas' strategy to topple the P.A., it
added.
Some of the planned attacks were meant
to take place in recent weeks, during the
war with Hamas in Gaza, to open a second
front of fighting, the intelligence agency
added.

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48 August 21 • 2014

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