The Shin Bet security agency on Thursday announced that it had foiled a Hamas plot to smuggle weapons and money into the West Bank using Israeli citizens.
In a statement, the Shin Bet said that in recent weeks, several Israelis from the central Arab town of Kafr Qasim and the southern Bedouin city of Rahat were arrested by police on suspicion of involvement in “covert” transfers of weapons and funds to the West Bank, on behalf of Ahmad Zarzur, an Israeli citizen living in Turkey who was operating on behalf of the Hamas terror group.
The agency said its investigation revealed a network that operated to smuggle weapons and hundreds of thousands of shekels into the West Bank, “with concerns that these would ultimately reach terror operatives to advance attacks.”
Zarzur, originally from Kafr Qasim, “exploited his family and social ties” in the northern Arab city to establish the smuggling network, the Shin Bet said.
The agency said that the network would operate by transferring cryptocurrency from Turkey to Israel, which was then converted to cash using Israeli money changers.
The cash would be used to purchase weapons from arms dealers in the Negev area, which were then smuggled into the West Bank, it said.
Indictments are set to be filed against several suspects in the case, the agency said.
“This is a grave case that exposes how elements in Turkey, including Arab Israelis and citizens [naturalized] through family reunification, exploit their connections in Israel and their access to Judea and Samaria to transfer funds and weapons that may eventually reach terror operatives,” the Shin Bet added, using the Biblical name for the West Bank.
Turkey has long had close ties with Hamas, and it hosts officials from the terror group in the country. Jerusalem has pressed Ankara to crack down on Hamas’s activity in Turkey, arguing that the Gaza-based Palestinian terror group uses its representatives there to orchestrate terror attacks against Israelis.
