(JTA) – Israeli security forces arrested four men suspected of plotting to kill Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman by firing a rocket at his car.
Unnamed sources from Israel’s General Security Service, or Shin Bet, said the men were affiliated with Hamas and had confessed during questioning to having planned to fire the RPG rocket at Liberman’s car near his home in Nokdim in the West Bank, Army Radio reported Thursday.
The men were identified as brothers Ibrahim Salim Mahmoud Zir and Ziad Salim Mahmoud Zir, along with Adnan Mahmoud Sabih and Yussuf Ibrahim Yussuf Alsheikh. Some of the alleged plotters have served time in Israeli prisons, according to the report.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the organization had no information regarding a plan to assassinate Liberman.
During their interrogation, Shin Bet uncovered “a separate terrorist activity in which military Hamas activists planned to run over settlers and army forces with a motor vehicle in the Gush Etzion area,” a Shin Bet statement read.
According to Shin Bet, the assassination plot is part of “an attempt by Hamas to restore its infrastructure in Judea and Samaria,” or the West Bank, following a crackdown by Israel this summer in the wake of the attempted abduction and murder of three Israeli teenagers in June.
