Special to WorldTribune.com

JERUSALEM — Israel has reported foiling a Hamas plot in the West Bank.

The Israel Security Agency said Hamas sought to establish a cell in the West Bank to abduct Israelis. The agency said the plot was organized by Hamas inmates in Israel and directed from the Gaza Strip.

“Those involved were in their first stages of planning the attack,” ISA said.

In a statement on Jan. 15, ISA identified a key suspect as Mohammed Bel, a resident of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. The agency said the 24-year-old Bel, imprisoned in Israel since 2008, recruited two other inmates for a cell operated by a Hamas front, called the Holy Warriors Brigades and headed by Assad Abu Sharia.

“The Holy Warriors Brigade is a terror group that splintered off from the Fatah Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, and adopted extremist Islamic characteristics,” ISA said.

Israel’s domestic security agency identified the two recruited
Palestinians as Ali Harub, a 21-year-old from the southern West Bank town of
Dura and Rajab Al Din, 53, a resident of Hamza. The plot was said to have
been approved and directed by the brigades while Bel coordinated with a
Hamas operative, Amar Kassam.

The three Palestinians were indicted by an Israeli court in late
December 2013, but a ban was imposed on any reporting. Officials said Bel,
Al Din and Harub confessed to the plot. Al Din was identified as a former
member of the Marxist-aligned Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Officials said the plot reflected Hamas efforts to expand its military
network in the West Bank. They said Hamas sought to use Palestinian inmates
to establish a cell that could abduct Israeli civilians and soldiers.

[On Jan. 16, Palestinian gunners fired five rockets toward the Israeli
city of Ashkelon. Officials said Israel’s Iron Dome battery intercepted the
projectiles.]

The Holy Warriors Brigades, funded, trained and equipped by Hamas, has
been based in the Gaza Strip. Abu Sharia became the group’s commander in
2007 a year after his brother, Omar, was killed in an Israeli air strike.
“We can say that in effect, the Holy Warriors Brigades is a Hamas front
group in every way,” ISA said.

Over the last two years, Hamas, committed to an Egyptian-arranged
ceasefire, has used proxies to attack Israel. In January 2013, Holy
Warriors. which claimed responsibility for bombings and sniper fire from the
Gaza Strip, recruited four West Bank residents and trained them for attacks.

“The recent thwarting of this plot and the investigation uncovered,
again, attempts by the Holy Warriors Brigades to expand its field of
operations to the West Bank, in order to serve its master, Hamas,” ISA said.

  Gaza Strip, Holy Warriors Brigades, Israel Security Agency, Israel: Hamas cell planned to abduct Israeli civilians, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine