Israel hits Gaza after rocket fire, three wounded

BEIT LAHYA: Palestinians attend the funeral of a Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant following a reported Israeli strike in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip. —AFP

JERUSALEM: Israeli authorities said yesterday that they had arrested three members of the Islamist militant group Hamas group on suspicion of planning to kidnap an Israeli in the West Bank. A statement from domestic security agency Shin Bet named the men as Muad Ashtayeh, born in 1998, Mohammed Ramadan and Ahmed Ramadan, aged around 19, all from the village of Tell, near the northern West Bank city of Nablus. It did not say if the Ramadans were related.

It alleged that Ashtayeh recruited the other two men and together they acquired a handgun, a taser and tear gas. They carried out surveillance on major junctions and hitchhiking stops used by soldiers and settlers in the occupied West Bank, it charged. "The plan was to disguise themselves as local settlers in order to get an intended victim to get into the assailants' vehicle," the statement alleged. It said the kidnap was planned for the eight-day Jewish festival of Hanukkah, which began on Tuesday evening.

The Shin Bet said it discovered the plot during October and November but did not specify when the suspects were arrested. It said the ultimate aim was to use the hostage as a bargaining chip for the release of Palestinian militants held in Israeli prisons. It alleged that the suspects were directed and funded by Hamas headquarters in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian enclave run by the Islamist movement.

Israel hits Gaza

Meanwhile, Israeli air force hit the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip yesterday lightly wounding three people, after Palestinians fired at southern Israel, the military and Gaza security officials said. Israel also arrested a number of senior Hamas members in the occupied West Bank overnight, including one of its leaders in the territory. Late on Tuesday, the military said that an undefined "projectile" was fired from Gaza towards southern Israel. A spokeswoman said that it was "very probably" a rocket but that it was not clear where it hit.

Palestinians in the coastal territory have fired both rockets and mortar rounds into Israel over the past week amid anger over US President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as its capital. "In response to the projectile fired from the Gaza Strip at Israel earlier, the Israel air force targeted a Hamas military compound in the southern Gaza Strip," the army said yesterday. Gaza security officials said that aircraft hit a Hamas naval base west of the city of Khan Yunis and open land nearby.

Three Palestinians were lightly wounded in the strikes, the health ministry in Gaza said. No casualties were reported on the Israeli side. Those arrested overnight included Hassan Yousef, one of the founders of the Islamist movement. He was arrested in Ramallah, a Hamas statement said. Yousef is a member of the largely defunct Palestinian parliament elected in 2006 and was jailed between 2012 and 2014. A spokeswoman for Israel's Shin Beth domestic security agency told AFP: "He was arrested because of his involvement in encouraging and directing Hamas activity in the West Bank."

Yousef's son, Mosab Hassan Yousef, gained prominence in recent years after a film was released detailing his spying for Israel, called "The Green Prince." Yousef disowned his son after he admitted to spying on Hamas for Israel. Trump's announcement last Wednesday has sparked protests across the Palestinian territories, with four people killed and hundreds wounded in clashes or retaliatory Israeli air strikes so far. - Agencies