An IDF Mista’arvim force on Saturday night detained Mohammed Maher Barghouti, Arab media reported. Barghouti—brother Marwan Barghouti, a terrorist sitting behind bars in Israel, who is considered by some to be the next PA Chairman—was arrested in the village of Kobar, outside Ramallah, based on the assessment of the Israeli defense establishment that the two shooting attacks in Ofra and Givat Assaf were carried out by the same terrorist cell, which was managed by the Barghouti clan.
Both terror attacks took place less than a day after the IDF had destroyed the home of Saleh Omar Barghouti, the terrorist who murdered Kim Levengrond Yehezkel, 29, and Ziv Hajbi, 35, in a terror attack in the Barkan industrial zone. Saleh Omar Barghouti, who was shot dead by the IDF last Wednesday, is the son of local Hamas leader Omar Barghouti.
Saleh was arrested when the cab he was in had been intercepted by IDF soldiers. The IDF on Wednesday night also arrested Wa’ed Barghouti, also from Kobar.
Also on Saturday, the terrorist who on Friday severely wounded an IDF soldier in a military post in Beit El surrendered to Israeli security forces. The terrorist, Mahmoud al-Halabi—clearly not a Barghouti—confessed to carrying out the attack. He also stressed that he was not affiliated with an organized terror infrastructure.
Al-Halabi turned himself in because it had become apparent that the army, especially the Duvdevan unit, was closing in on the area where he was hiding, and that he could end up being shot. The Shabak was sending out messages to anyone who would tune in that they knew where he was hiding and he should give himself up.
The terrorist is the cousin of Muhand al-Halabi, who carried out the stabbing attack in the Old City three years ago, killing Rabbi Nehemia Lavi, 41, and IDF soldier Aharon Bennett, 21.
As part of the hunt for the Barghouti cell, the IDF arrested dozens of Hamas operatives in Judea and Samaria. In Hebron, two armed suspects were arrested in a taxi about 300 meters from the Tomb of the Patriarchs, with a standard M-16 rifle set on automatic and loaded with a cartridge full of bullets. In addition, an Uzi standard weapon was seized in the same car.
The weapons were confiscated and the two suspects were transferred to the security forces for interrogation, to find out if their weapons were intended for terrorist activities.
Should be one of those really short interrogations.