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| By Israel Insider staff and partners April 17, 2005 |
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The Shin Bet security service has arrested three residents of East Jerusalem involved in a plot to murder Shas party spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, according to information the agency released for publication Sunday.
One of the three has already been charged and the other two are still being interrogated by Shin Bet agents.
The three -- French citizen Salah Hamuri, 20, Mutsan Mohammed Yavsha, 25, and Moussa Mohammed Darweesh, 22 -- are members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the group behind the murder of cabinet minister Rehavam Ze'evi in a Jerusalem hotel in October 2001.
Hamori, who holds an Israeli identity card and French citizenship, was incarcerated in the past for PFLP activities. After his release from jail a year ago, he sought to re-establish a cell in Jerusalem and set up a number of networks. The cell members planned attacks and organized street disturbances. They purchased weapons and ammunition.
Ze'evi's killers, jailed in Jericho, had apparently approved the plans to attack the Rabbi.
Shin Bet agents learned that Darweesh, who knew where the Rabbi lived from his time working as a delivery boy, had suggested to Hamuri that they target him. The group had carried out surveillance of Yosef's Jerusalem residence in the capital's Har Nof neighborhood and decided that it would be easier to carry out their attack as he was leaving his house.
Security sources told Israel Radio that PFLP militants are seeking any opportunity to harm Israeli public figures. The fact that East Jerusalem residents can easily access targets in the western part of the city increase the organization's ability to carry out such attacks.
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