Security source: ‘Our goal is to disrupt the movement of shooting cells’; IDF stepping up activity in area.
By YAAKOV LAPPINARMY AND POLICE units seized this handgun, as well as other weapons, during an overnight raid in Hebron.(photo credit: IDF)
Terrorist shooting cells continue to harbor intentions to carry out attacks on Israelis in the Hebron area, but they are finding their routes blocked and their sources of illegal firearms under attack, a security source said on Sunday.The source spoke hours after the army conducted an arms raid in Hebron overnight between Saturday and Sunday.Army and police units seized a Negev light machine gun, a locally produced Carl Gustav assault rifle, a handgun, ammunition, and a fake Israeli blue ID.The suspect in possession of these items was more likely involved in criminal rather than terrorist activities, but the raid underlies the constant attempts made by security forces to reach weapons that serve terrorists just as easily as criminals in the Hebron area, according to the source.“There are lots of weapons in this sector. Some of them end up with terrorists. The fact is, illegal weapons, many of them locally made, are moving around here,” the source stated.Organized terrorist cells affiliated with groups like Hamas remain fixated on the goal of shooing at Israelis, the source said. “We carry out many activities to disrupt and thwart the cells that want to travel on the roads here. Our goal is to disrupt their movements,” the officer added. Such activities include nightly raids on suspects, stepped up raids on gun manufacturing workshops, and an increase in army positions around roads in the southern West Bank.The army has also been targeting sources of jihadist incitement such as radio and television stations in the Hebron region. “We learned how to adapt our operations to the threat,” the source argued.Last week, a senior IDF officer told The Jerusalem Post that in recent months, the majority of violent Palestinian incidents shifted from Samaria south toward Judea and the Etzion areas.In the last major incident in the area at the end of July, a 29-year-old terrorist, who had shot dead Rabbi Michael Mark and injured his wife and children, was killed in an exchange of fire with the IDF in the West Bank village of Tzurif, near Hebron.The gunman barricaded himself inside a home and opened fire on security personnel with a Kalashnikov rifle. The army fired anti-tank missiles at the building, before bulldozing it.