Israeli security forces prevented a bus bombing in Jerusalem by arresting five Arab terrorists who planned to execute the attack remotely, the Israeli Security Agency (Shin Bet) said in a statement on Thursday.
The five alleged co-conspirators have been indicted for belonging to and engaging in an illegal association; conspiring to commit murder; gun offenses; and the attempted manufacture of a weapon, according to the statement from the Shin Bet.
The defendants, some of whom are allegedly affiliated with Hamas and others with Fatah, acted as a cell to remotely detonate an explosive device, which they planned to smuggle into Jerusalem from Samaria, the Shin Bet statement also said.
The gun offenses include shooting attacks that some of the defendants were involved in against IDF troops, according to Shin Bet. None of those attacks resulted in injury, the text also said.
One of the alleged cell members, Ahmed Jaser Ali, manufactured an explosive device for the planned bus bombing, the Shin Bet added. The cell members experimented with this device and others to determine how much explosives to pack into it.
The defendants are from the Ramallah area. In addition to Jaser Ali, they are Mander Sheikh Qassem, Bashir Awad, Omar Tsobakh and Ali Shweiki.
In recent weeks, Israel has stepped up its operations against terrorists in Judea and Samaria. Since Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has killed 917 Arabs in that area, most of them armed terrorists, and detained about 6,000 others, according to the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University. In that period, terrorists have killed 63 Israelis in Judea and Samaria, most of whom were civilians.
