Israel’s internal security agency, the Shin Bet, announced Sunday that it had broken up eleven plots to kidnap Israeli soldiers since September 2013.
Of the foiled attempts, “the majority were driven by prisoners in order to use as a bargaining chip for their release.” Half of the attempts were done by Fatah operatives, and half by inmates affiliated with Hamas or other Islamist organizations.
On May 22, the Shin Bet security service and police arrested a former Palestinian security prisoner who allegedly plotted to kidnap an Israeli citizen in the northern town of Avtalion.
The suspect had entered a house armed with a knife with the intent of kidnapping a resident there, but was discovered and chased out by the home’s owner. In another case, a Fatah member, Abdel Rahman Othman, and five members of his family were arrested for planning to kidnap a soldier and hold him hostage in exchange for Palestinians jailed on terror charges.
Hamas has claimed that kidnapping Israeli soldiers is part of “Palestinian culture” and in April deemed kidnapping soldiers a “top priority.” Hamas operations in the West Bank have been run by a Hamas official residing in Turkey who calls for “abductions.”
Rather than criticizing terrorists, the Palestinian Authority has regularly lionized them.
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