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A Hamas member is taken under arrest by troops during an army operation in Hebron
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| By Israel Insider staff and partners October 11, 2005 |
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Israeli security has broken up three deadly Hamas cells, a Shin Bet official said Monday, adding that one of them featured the first-ever known female master bombmaker recruited by the Islamic terror group.
The disclosures reinforced warnings by Israeli leaders and security officials that with the completion of Israel's pullout from Gaza last month, Palestinian terrorists will transfer their operations to the West Bank, trying to drive the Israelis out. Terrorist groups believe their attacks forced Israel out of Gaza.
Briefing reporters on Monday, the official said Israeli forces in recent weeks arrested 117 Hamas terrorists from cells in Ramallah, north of Hebron and southwest of Hebron, responsible for the deaths of five Israelis and the injuring of dozens, thus violating the informal cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinians in place since February, a senior Shin Bet official said.
The official, whose position required him to insist on anonymity, released the information gathered over several weeks for the first time on Monday.
The Ramallah cell was responsible for the kidnapping and murder of Sasson Nuriel, an Israeli merchant whose body was found in the West Bank on September 26.
Hamas, the larger of two violent Islamic terror groups in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, has claimed responsibility for dozens of homicide bomb attacks that have killed hundreds of Israelis during the last five years of conflict. Founded in Gaza in 1987, the group is known for training bomb makers to prepare explosives for attacks in Israel and against Israeli soldiers and citizens in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza.
The Ramallah cell included Hamas' first known female master bomb maker, the official said. Sammar Sabich, 22, of the Jebaliya refugee camp in Gaza, was sent to the West Bank town of Tulkarem, where she was to show terrorists how to prepare bombs as part of the upgrade of Hamas activity in the Judea and Samaria following the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the official said.
In Tulkarem, she was married and taught her new husband how to build bombs and prepared him to replace her in case she was arrested or killed, the Shin Bet official said.
Hamas leaders in Gaza denied any knowledge of the subject and said they were not aware of any activity in its ranks of anyone named Sammar Sabich.
The official said the leader of the Ramallah terror cell was Yasser Tzalach, son of a senior Palestinian police official in Ramallah and an adviser to Palestinian Interior Minister Nasser Yousef, who is in charge of security forces. The Shin Bet said Hamas recruited Tzalach in 2003 while he was a student in Cairo and sent him to Sinai to look for places to stage terror attacks against Israel.
Tzalach's family in Ramallah denied any involvement, saying it was outraged by the arrest and had hired a lawyer to defend its son. Relatives said Tzalach, 25, is a businessman living primarily in Cairo and had no connection to terrorism.
There was no independent corroboration of the Shin Bet allegations.
According to a document released by the Shin Bet, Tzalach led the terror cell that kidnapped and killed Nuriel, 51. A day after his body was recovered, Hamas terrorists released a video showing Nuriel with his hands bound behind his back and his eyes covered by a green Hamas blindfold. Behind him was a green Islamic flag, and on his leg rested what appeared to be his Israeli drivers license.
The Shin Bet said one of the Hebron Palestinian terror cells had 23 members and was believed to be behind terror attacks that killed four Israelis, including a homicide bombing at the central bus station in Beersheba in August.
The third terror cell was involved in shooting attacks that led to no casualties, the official said.
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