Two residents of the West Bank town Nablus were charged on Tuesday with membership of Al-Qa’ida and with recruiting potential operatives for the Jordanian branch of the international terror organization.
‘Azzam Abu Al-‘Adas and Bilal Hafnawi, both in their twenties, are charged with planning a multifaceted terror attack, including a suicide bomber and a car bomb at a pizza shop in Jerusalem’s French Hill.
An Al-Qa’ida operative in Jordan was supposed to help them carry out the attack, and asked them to recruit more operatives for the organization.
The funding for the attack was supposed to come from a woman living in the United Arab Emirates.
They were arrested three months ago when they tried to enter Israel from Jordan at the Allenby Bridge. The attack was subsequently thwarted.
According to the indictment, they were planning additional attacks in Tel Aviv and Bat Yam, both in the center of Israel. A Jordanian Al-Qa’ida contact promised to send someone from Gaza to Nablus to help train them.
The Israeli security authorities revealed the plot by intercepting messages on the Internet, a Palestinian security source told the Israeli news portal Ynet.
Earlier this month, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud ‘Abbas said there are indications that elements of Al-Qa’ida are in Gaza and the West Bank, and expressed concern that if these elements were able to enter these areas without any supervision, the result will be the “destruction of the region.”
Israeli security sources also said recently there is evidence indicating that Palestinians from the West Bank made contact with groups affiliated with Al-Qa’ida and received financial support from them for their operations.
In a separate development, a terror attack was foiled on Tuesday when Israeli police forces found a Palestinian, apparently belonging to Islamic Jihad, carrying an explosive belt in a vehicle on the main Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway. Security forces were on high alert and had been hunting for him for several hours before he was seized. Security authorities assume the bomb was intended to be activated in the center of Israel.