Islamic Jihad Plan to Fire Rockets at Afula

This week Islamic Jihad was in the headlines and not only because of the terror attack at the Tel Aviv nightclub on Friday night.

… Terror attacks planned by the organization that were no less serious were played down.

On Monday afternoon, following a two day hunt, Nahal Brigade forces discovered a commercial vehicle laden with powerful explosives near the village of Arabe in the Jenin area, not far from the Menashe brigade command headquarters. The car, which was in an advanced stage of preparation, was found with a long cable with a battery, and with a video camera connected to it in order to document the terror attack.

The car was detonated in a controlled manner by security force sappers. An Islamic Jihad infrastructure in the Tulkarm area was behind the attempt to carry out a large scale terror attack, directed by the Islamic Jihad command headquarters in Syria.

A few months, ago, on December 30, security forces arrested Jibril Zubeidi, a wanted 19 year old Islamic Jihad terrorist youth. The wanted man, brother of Zakariya Zubeidi, was caught after trying to flee from the vehicle he was driving. In the vehicle were found M-16 rifles, as well as two magazines of ammunition.

Information that the GSS gave permission to publish indicated that until his arrest Jibril Zubeidi was a wanted man who operated on behalf of the Islamic Jihad infrastructure in the Jenin area, and was connected to a large number of terrorists and wanted men in the area in which some of them were arrested. Zubeidi operated tirelessly to carry out terror attacks against IDF forces in the Samaria area and on the Israeli home front. He was also involved in shooting attacks at IDF soldiers and the planning and guiding of many terror attacks.

During his interrogation by GSS officials, Zubeidi said that the infrastructure he belonged to had planned serious terror attacks. The most serious one among them was a plan to fire rockets at Afula, by placing the launching area between Jenin and Afula. The rockets were not fired because of technological problems with the infrastructure. It is reasonable to assume that in view of the damage to morale created by the Kassam rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, it was not hard for activists such as Zubeidi and his cohorts to identify the potential that could be found in the firing of rockets from northern Samaria to Israeli territory.

Another terror attack that was planned was the blowing up of a car bomb. Zubeidi admitted his involvement in the preparation of a booby trapped vehicle together with senior wanted Islamic Jihad men in Jenin. The car bomb was meant to blow up near IDF soldiers next to the IDF roadblock on the seamline.

And there was also a planned suicide bombing. Zubeidi was involved in the attempt to dispatch two suicide bombers to carry out the suicide bombing at French Hill in Jerusalem, and even agreed to make sure to send them to Israel. The two suicide bombers, who were supposed to shoot at a school and cause a large number of victims, were arrested in an operation by GSS and IDF. In this manner a terror attack was thwarted, which was supposed to be in response to the death of Mohammed Camil, an Islamic Jihad terrorist from Kabatiya.

The official Palestinian Authority news agency ignored the terror attack, while the Palestinian print media reported the Islamic Jihad taking responsibility for the terror attack in Tel Aviv by terrorist Abdullah Said Badran, a student from the village of Dir Russon, north of Tulkarm.

This official Palestinian news agency, WAFA, in its Hebrew edition, this week presented complaints against IDF activity, while ignoring the fact that these operations stemmed from the same terror attack.

A report published on Monday with the headline, “Occupation Soldiers Occupied the Town of Dir al-Russon,” wrote this: “Security sources and eyewitnesses reported that a large force of the Israeli occupying army yesterday invaded the town of Dir al-Russon, south of the city of Tulkarm, and took it over. The Israeli occupying soldiers very carefully searched the home of town resident Said Ibrahim Badran, leaving the town afterwards without any reports of arrests being made during this raid.”

Not one word about the fact that only two days before, a suicide bomber had left the town to carry out a terror attack, or that the very same resident of this town, coincidentally, is the father of the same suicide bomber.

And another report from the same agency, on the same day, on its Hebrew language site. The headline: “Military steps against those coming from Tulkarm to Nablus have been increased.” And the report (in Hebrew) says that, “Eyewitnesses report Israeli occupying forces have significantly increased the maneuvers that they carry out against civilians, who yesterday tried to travel on the roads leading from Tulkarm to Nablus, in the northern West Bank. Eye witnesses reported that the Israeli occupying forces yesterday set up a mobile roadblock near the settlement of Shaveh Shomron, which is located on the lands of the town of Dir Sharaf, which is northwest of Nablus, combed and searched the belongings of the citizens who tried to use the road, and caused long lines of Palestinian vehicles, who waited for their turn near the roadblock.”

Again, not one word about the fact that the search was being conducted there simply in the wake of the terror attack, which originated in that very area…

This piece ran in Hatzofeh on March 3rd, 2005