The Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) and police have arrested a terrorist cell in Jerusalem and prevented as massive knife and axe attack on Jewish guards at Beit Ovadia in the Silwan neighborhood, across the street from the Old City.
A gag order on the arrests was removed Thursday morning.
Several terrorists were arrested, including a minor who was recruited by Mohammed Nasser Abbasi, active in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization. A second PFLP terrorist who was arrested is Morad Mahmoud Kostero.
Abbasi told interrogators that he hid the weapons in his grandfather’s home in Silwan.
He confessed to using the minor to carry out surveillance on the guards and their movements,
Abbas made several firebombs and pipe bombs that he turned over to other members of the terrorist cell for use in the planned attack.
Several of those arrested confessed to being involved in terror in Silwan, including rock-throwing and firebombing attacks and riots.
The plan to use axes to hack to death guards is similar to the gruesome attack that was carried out last year on a synagogue in Jerusalem’s Har Nof synagogue, where the terrorists butchered four men, including three rabbis, while they were praying.
Silwan has become the focus of terrorist attacks on a growing Jewish community that includes the City of David, where Jews have bought houses from Arabs but usually are delayed from moving in to their new homes because of Arab allegations that the sales were false.