The IDF continues to prevent terror. Israeli Soldiers. Illustrative. By Joshua Spurlock
In a disturbing twist to the old adage “the pen is mightier than the sword,” the Hamas terrorist group was using a bookstore as a bomb lab, but it won’t be building explosives there any more. During the weekend, Israel’s military sealed down the facility, which was located in the Judea and Samaria region (also known as the West Bank) in the city of Nablus.
IDF Spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner posted to his Twitter account a video of the IDF team sealing the bookstore door, noting that the Palestinian terror cell involved there had “planned attacks in Jerusalem & Haifa.” Not only is the facility further evidence that terrorists continue to plan deadly attacks on Israelis, but it also serves as a reminder that the Hamas group—headquartered in the Gaza Strip—continues to seek to build a presence in the Biblical heartland of Israel, posing a potential threat to the Israel and the West Bank Palestinian leadership.
The bomb lab wasn’t the only weapons facility uncovered recently. Earlier last week, the IDF Spokesperson’s Twitter page announced that three weapons manufacturing workshops in the Judea region had been seized in an Israeli security forces operation.
The IDF Spokesperson also posted a video on the seizure in which it was noted that the workshops had equipment for making illegal guns and “these weapons made here would have been sold to local criminals, lone wolf terrorists, and organized terror groups.”
In another Twitter post, the IDF Spokesperson noted that in 2017 alone, more than 110 weapons and 12 workshops have been seized, which is right around the pace of 2016. Last year, more than 43 workshops were uncovered and over 450 weapons seized.
Tweeted the IDF Spokesperson, “A weapons workshop closed today is a terror attack prevented tomorrow.”
(By Joshua Spurlock, www.themideastupdate.com, April 2, 2017)