Israel Arrest Four Palestinians Who Planned to Assassinate Foreign Minister Lieberman With RPG
The Israeli army revealed on Friday that it has arrested four Palestinians believed to be Hamas fighters who were planning to assassinate Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman using an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade).
Israel's Shin Bet security agency said in court documents that the men under arrest had planned to buy an RPG and fire it at Lieberman's convoy near his home in the settlement of Nokdim in the West Bank.
Hamas responded that it has "no information about this issue," BBC News reported, but did not condemn the planned assassination.
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"We have no information about this issue. However, we stress that leaders of the Occupation (Israel) who are responsible for the killing of children and women and for defiling the sacred sites are legitimate targets for the resistance," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri asserted.
Israel and Hamas were locked in a violent conflict that stretched for 50 days over the summer and led to the deaths of 2,100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, as well as 67 Israeli soldiers and six civilians.
As for the assassination attempt, Shin Bet revealed that the group of Palestinian militants had Lieberman's convoy under surveillance. The men had apparently timed and measured the different sections of his journey, and had found the most promising point of attack.
The militants said that they hoped Lieberman's death "would relay a message to the State of Israel that would bring about an end to the Gaza war."
The agency did not elaborate on how precisely it stopped the attack, however. It identified three of the arrested as Ibrahim Salim Mahmoud al-Zir, Ziad Salim Mahmoud al-Zir and Adnan Amin Mahmoud Sabih, who came from the West Bank village of Harmala.
The news of the assassination plot follows a terror attack on a Jerusalem synagogue this week carried out by two Palestinian men. Five people were murdered in the attack, including three rabbis with dual American-Israeli citizenship, while the attackers were also shot dead by police.
The deadly attack was condemned both by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
"We will respond with a heavy hand to the brutal murder of Jews who came to pray and were met by reprehensible murderers," Netanyahu said.
Abbas clarified in a statement that he "condemns the attack on Jewish worshipers in one of their places of prayer in West Jerusalem and condemns the killing of civilians no matter who is doing it."
