JERUSALEM (JTA) — Seven members of a Hamas terror cell that were planning attacks on Israeli targets were arrested.
Israel’s Shin Bet security service and the Israel Defense Forces made the arrests between December and March, according to the IDF. A gag order on the case was lifted Wednesday.
The cell members were from the West Bank city of Kalkilya, near central Israel. Among those arrested was an Israeli-Arab citizen, Khaled Daoud, 21, of Kalkilya and the nearby Israeli village of Bara.
The IDF said the cell members had created improvised explosive devices using fertilizer and and other materials and had planned attacks on Israeli targets. They also planned to buy weapons that “originated in Israel,” according to the IDF.
Several cell members had been arrested by Palestinian security forces but were released, the IDF said, even though a remote control device to activate an explosive device was found in their possession.
The men will be indicted in the coming days.
