Israel deported an Italian national who was arrested during a recent counterterror raid on Monday, the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) confirmed in a statement on Tuesday.
Stefania Costantini was arrested when Israeli soldiers raided the Dheisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem on Monday and sent back to Italy the same day.
According to the Shin Bet, Costantini was in contact with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a secular Marxist terror group. She entered Israel on a tourist visa in May. Italian media reports said Constantini is in her 50s.
The agency said in a statement on Tuesday that “Costantini was summoned in September 2022 for interrogation by the Shin Bet, but she did not report, and even continued her activities for the terrorist organization.”
The raid on Dheisheh, a UN-administered refugee camp, was part of an ongoing Israeli sweep against terror groups in Judea and Samaria which has thwarted more than 500 Arab terror attacks. Operation Wave Breaker was launched by the IDF following a surge of terror attacks in the spring of 2022 which killed 19 people. Overall, 31 people were killed in Arab terror attacks in 2022.
The PFLP has been designated as a terror organization by Israel, the US, European Union, Canada and Australia, among other countries.
Its most notable attacks include the 1976 Entebbe hijacking, the 2001 assassination of tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi and the 2014 Har Nof synagogue massacre.
In 2021, then-Defense Minister Benny Gantz blacklisted six human rights organizations over their ties to the PFLP.
