Hamas member Salama suspected of recidivism; IDF source: "Clear message against return to terror."
By YAAKOV KATZPalestinian prisoners on bus 521(photo credit: REUTERS/Mohammed Salem )
The IDF arrested a member of Hamas early Tuesday morning, three months after he was released as part of the prisoner swap for Gilad Schalit.Sources in the IDF’s Central Command said that Ayman Salama was the first Palestinian terrorist released in the October swap to be re-arrested by Israel for allegedly returning to engage in anti- Israel terrorist activity.Salama was released in the first stage of the deal on October 18, 2011, and returned to his home in the West Bank village of Dura near Hebron.He was arrested early Tuesday morning by soldiers from the Golani Brigade’s elite reconnaissance battalion.Salama, 36, was arrested 10 years ago for his involvement in a 2002 bomb attack in Beersheba which wounded 18 people, as well as for a series of shooting attacks during the second intifada. He was sentenced to nearly 38 years in jail and was supposed to be released in 2040.Sources in the Central Command said that Salama’s arrest sent a “clear message that people who return to terrorism will pay.”
