Posted on 09/14/2004 2:08:09 PM PDT by yonif
The Shin Bet, in collaboration with the Southern District Police, uncovered a terror cell two months ago operating out of the southern Beduin town of Tel Sheva, which planned to kidnap and kill an IDF soldier, it was released for publication on Tuesday.
According to the police, six residents of Tel Sheva, located near Omer, planned to kidnap an IDF soldier, kill him and then use the body as a bargaining chip in negotiations to release Palestinian security prisoners being held in Israeli prisons.
The group was allegedly working together with Hamas members from the Gaza Strip and was supposed to receive $100,000 in exchange for their activities.
Two members of the group, brothers Yousef Abu Taha, 24 and Salah, 21, reportedly relatives of Magistrate Court Judge Nasar Abu Taha, were indicted Tuesday in the Beersheba District Court on charges of assisting the enemy at a time of war, of attempted kidnapping and of conspiring to commit a crime.
The two were arrested last month after the Shin Bet obtained intelligence information regarding the cell's activities.
The four other members of the group, including a minor, are scheduled to be indicted on Wednesday.
According to the indictment, the plan was broached to the Taha brothers by a relative, Halal Abu Taha, originally from the Gaza Strip and who under the family reunification program moved to Tel Sheva after marrying an Israeli. Halal allegedly met with a Hamas member a year ago during a trip to visit family in the Khan Younis refugee camp in the Gaza Strip and was offered $100,000 to carry out the attack.
The three agreed that they would travel in Salah's car and would pick up a soldier waiting at a bus station. Afterwards they planned to strangle him and bury the body in a wadi near Tel Sheva.
In their investigation, the suspects admitted to picking up a soldier they found hitchhiking at the Netivot Junction with the intention to murder him. In the end, the suspects said, they decided not to go through with the plan after they discovered that the soldier was acquainted with Tel Sheva residents they also knew.
Southern District Police head Cmdr. Dudi Cohen called the affair "a cynical exploitation of the family unification program for the use of terror."
On Monday, the IDF said that 23 family reunifications have led to terror attacks since the beginning of 2001.
I believe it has been suspended for a number of years already, though leftists are trying to get it back.
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