(Communicated by Israeli security sources)
In recent months ISA and IDF forces uncovered a terrorist cell belonging to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in the Dura area, west of Hebron. During their questioning the cell members told investigators of their plans to execute a number of terror attacks:
The cell planned to bomb a synagogue in the Israeli city of Modi'in. The establisher of the cell, Ramzi Hassan Hassin Sharauna, told investigators that he had been asked by his superiors to recruit a suicide bomber to carry out a bombing of a synagogue in Israel. Sharauna, who was working illegally at a construction site in Modi'in at the time, offered to dispatch the bomber to a nearby synagogue. Sharauna claimed that the plan was to bomb the synagogue at a time in which it was empty and to escape to Ramallah. Sharauna also scouted the area of the synagogue in preparation for the attack.
The cell had also planned to abduct US citizens in Judea and Samaria in order to negotiate the release of the organization's Secretary General, Ahmed Sa'adat, who is being held in Israel. The cell members had actually attempted an abduction last year but had released the abducted man soon afterwards.
In addition, the cell had planned to carry out a combined shooting and bombing attack at a bus station in Modi'in and to shoot and stab soldiers in the Hebron area.
The exposure of the terrorist cell began in February when security forces arrested Sharauna in the Dura area. Sharauna admitted to have been in contact with prominent PFLP members from the Gaza Strip who had established cells in Nablus and Jenin and instructed him to establish a cell in the Hebron area. Sharauna exposed the activity of the Dura cell, of which 12 operatives have been arrested as of now. Cell members arrested include Nimar Fahami Bader Jabar, Sari Sharif Abed Al Jafar Jaradat and Muhammad Fahami Abed Al Hamid Zakik, all of them students at Al-Arub College.
The exposure of the cell and the quick arrest of its members thwarted serious attacks in the Israeli home front. Its activity is yet another indication of the involvement of Gaza-based terrorists in terror activity in Judea and Samaria.