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Shin Bet busts Jewish terror cell
The Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security agency, arrested seven members of a suspected Jewish terrorist group. The arrests were announced on Wednesday following the lifting of reporting restrictions.
The group includes six civilian residents of Israeli settlements and one IDF soldier, and several of the suspects are members of the same family. They are all male and range in age from 16-22. Some have reportedly confessed and implicated the others.
The group is suspected of involvement in a number of attacks against Palestinians, including physical assaults, a tear gas attack on a Palestinian house using a gas grenade stolen from the IDF, the throwing of firebombs at a Palestinian home, and the torching of cars.
Military Police also arrested an eighth person – an IDF officer who is the brother of some of the other suspects – following reports of the initial arrests.
Writing in Haaretz, Amos Harel reports that the Shin Bet now believes it has identified and detained the key players involved in Jewish terror. Since the arson attack on the Dawabshe home in Duma in July 2015, Israeli police and security forces have redoubled efforts in tracking such groups, and have had a number of successes after years of trying and failing to make a breakthrough into the most extreme settler networks.
Overall, it appears that the perpetrators of attacks against Palestinians are a small, tight-knit group of friends and family based around a few ringleaders – approximately 20 are in jail and 30 are under house-arrest or have their movements legally restricted. Israeli authorities are considering how to best hold them in prison and prevent future attacks.