The Shin Bet security agency said Sunday that it had arrested over 60 Hamas operatives over the past few months as part of one of the largest crackdowns on a West Bank terror network in recent years.
In a statement, the agency said that in the past three months, during joint operations with the IDF and police, “a significant, complex, and large-scale Hamas infrastructure was exposed in Hebron,” with those involved accused of planning a variety of types of attacks “in the immediate time frame.”
“This is the largest and most complex investigation by the Shin Bet in the Judea and Samaria area in the past decade,” a senior Shin Bet official said in the statement, referring to the West Bank.
The Shin Bet said its interrogations found that senior Hamas operatives from the Hebron area, most of whom were formerly jailed by Israel, “worked to recruit, arm, and train additional Hamas operatives from the area to carry out shooting and bombing attacks against Israeli targets.”
“It was also revealed that members of the infrastructure conducted firearms training, gathered intelligence on Israeli targets, manufactured explosive material, and assembled explosive devices, all with the aim of carrying out major attacks on behalf of Hamas” in the West Bank and in Israel, the agency said. No attacks were actually carried out, though some of those arrested were accused of having taken part in a deadly shooting nearly 15 years ago.
Over 60 members of Hamas involved in 10 linked terror cells were detained by Israeli forces, the Shin Bet said. During their interrogations, they provided information that led to additional suspects, though no details were provided about the other arrests.
The agency said it also uncovered 22 firearms and 11 grenades, along with other weapons and large amounts of ammunition. Additionally, an underground arsenal and hideout was uncovered, it said.
Based on information provided under interrogation, some of those arrested were accused of involvement in an August 2010 shooting attack at Bani Naim Junction near Hebron, in which four Israelis — Yitzhak and Tali Ames, and two passengers in their car, Kochava Even Chaim and Avishai Schindler — were murdered.
Additionally, the interrogations led to the arrests of several suspects involved in supplying guns to a Hamas cell that shot and killed Cpl. Avraham Fetena, a Military Police soldier, in a November 2023 attack on a West Bank checkpoint on Route 60, south of Jerusalem, the Shin Bet said.
“The exposure of the infrastructure, which operated covertly while maintaining compartmentalization between the different cells, constitutes a significant thwarting of Hamas’s intentions to carry out a series of major attacks in Israel,” the Shin Bet official added.
Indictments were filed against the suspects, accusing them of severe crimes, including heading a terror organization, and the equivalent of attempted murder and attempted conspiracy to commit murder.
Since October 7, 2023, when Hamas led a devastating invasion of southern Israel from the Gaza Strip that triggered the ongoing war in the enclave, troops have arrested some 6,000 Palestinians across the West Bank, including more than 2,350 affiliated with Hamas.
According to the Palestinian Authority health ministry, more than 950 West Bank Palestinians have been killed in that time. The IDF says the vast majority of them were gunmen killed in exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops or terrorists carrying out attacks.
During the same period, 51 people, including Israeli security personnel, have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another eight members of the security forces were killed in clashes with terror operatives in the West Bank.