A code transmitted through a Damascus radio news broadcast gave the green light for what was to have been a series of terrorist outrages against civilians in Israel over the Rosh Hashana holiday, security authorities disclosed today. That and other information on terrorist activities emerged from the investigation of two Arab youths who were arrested on Rosh Hashana eve in the act of planting a home-made time bomb in a busy Tel Aviv supermarket.
The pair have been identified as Hassan Abed 22, and Nabih Hilef, 21. They joined El Fatah several months ago and underwent an intensive sabotage training course in Syria while ostensibly in Jordan for a “family visit,” the authorities revealed. Abed and Hilef were directed by a third terrorist, identified by police only as a 24-year-old resident of Tulkarem. It was the latter who monitored the Damascus newscast and passed the word on to the others to proceed with the supermarket bombing which was to have been followed by other terrorist acts, police said.
Abed and Hilef led police to caches of arms and explosives hidden in stone fences in their home villages. The police have also learned of additional small terrorist cells recruited and activated by terrorist agents who entered Israeli territory last summer under the “summer visitors” program. Some of the “visitors” remained in the country after their permits expired. Police believe they may be linked to the terrorist murder of Avraham Wexler, a 50-year-old Israeli civilian, in the Jenin vegetable market Saturday morning.
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