MIDEAST-PALESTINIANS/ISRAEL-PLOT Israel says Hamas planned to assassinate Lieberman in West Bank

Record ID: 398803

  • Title: MIDEAST-PALESTINIANS/ISRAEL-PLOT Israel says Hamas planned to assassinate Lieberman in West Bank
  • Date: 21st November 2014
  • Summary: JERUSALEM (FILE) (REUTERS) ****WARNING CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** LIEBERMAN WALKING INTO CABINET MEETING
  • Embargoed: 6th December 2014 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Gaza
  • City:
  • Country: Palestinian Territories
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA76DWB4VOQ5SEALEE744VZCDQB
  • Story Text: Israel has arrested four Palestinians suspected of planning to kill Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman with an anti-tank rocket while he drove to his Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, Israeli officials say.
    The alleged Hamas plot was hatched during the July-August war in Gaza. Its disclosure late on Thursday (November 20) comes as ties fray between Israel and U.S.-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is based in the West Bank, over a contested Jerusalem shrine.
    A statement by Israel's domestic intelligence service Shin Bet identified three of the detainees as Hamas members and, citing their confessions under interrogation, said they had hoped killing Lieberman "would relay a message to the State of Israel that would bring about an end to the Gaza war".
    On Friday (November 21), upon leaving his home in the settlement of Nokdim, Lieberman refused to speak to reporters.
    Settlers who live nearby denounced the alleged plot.
    "I am not really surprised... he is not the only one. We drive here all the time, and I personally drive around feeling scared," said a settler named Noam Cohen.
    "I think there are crazy people in the world, you know, people don't think in a good way, they want to hurt other people," added Adva Marcus from a nearby settlement.
    Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip although it is formally under Abbas' rule, neither confirmed nor denied the allegations.
    "We don't have specific information about this plot. The Israelis are the source of the information. I think our movement will wait until things will get clearer regarding the (arrested) cell, and what they have been asked to do. This case is connected to the (Hamas) armed wing, if it happened at all," said Hamas leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, after Friday prayers.
    The four Palestinians live near Nokdim settlement. They had carried out surveillance on the far-right diplomat's convoy and tried to obtain a rocket-propelled grenade to attack it, the Shin Bet said.
    The Shin Bet described the alleged plot as a sign that Islamist Hamas, which Abbas's forces had suppressed in the West Bank after a 2007 Palestinian civil war, were stepping up their activities in the territory and adjoining East Jerusalem.
    Hamas militants abducted and killed three Israeli youths in the West Bank in June, triggering the murder by Jews of a Palestinian teenager from Jerusalem. Shortly afterwards, Israel launched a 50-day offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip with the stated aim of stopping rocket fire out of the enclave.
    Israeli access to Jerusalem's most sacred compound, which houses Islam's third-holiest mosque and where Biblical Jewish Temples once stood, has further inflamed Palestinians, leading to lethal attacks on Jews in city streets and in a synagogue.
    Israel's talks with Abbas on founding a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem collapsed in April and it has accused him of inciting violence since. This is disputed, however, by security officials, who credit Abbas's forces with curbing many West Bank threats.
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