The Hamas leadership abroad has ordered the group to carry out a major terrorist attack in Israel, the Shin Bet said.
The deputy chief of Israel’s domestic intelligence service told the Cabinet in a briefing Sunday that Hamas, since it seized control of the Gaza Strip in June, has smuggled in 40 tons of weaponry from nearby Egypt, a radical hike in quantities.
Under orders from its leadership in Syria, Hamas is further trying to engineer a major suicide attack in Israel by terrorists from the West Bank, the unnamed official said according to a transcript of the briefing. Those efforts have been thwarted by Israeli security forces, which operate almost daily in the West Bank.
The data appeared to contradict assessments that Hamas, reeling from its surprise defeat of the more moderate Fatah faction in Gaza, would try to close Palestinian ranks and seek a truce with Israel.
With Palestinian rocket fire intensifying from Gaza, there are mounting expectations that Israel could soon invade the Hamas-run territority.
