3 J’lem Hamas men indicted for planning shooting

The Jerusalem District Attorney’s Office filed an indictment on Tuesday against three residents of the capital who are suspected of plotting a terrorist attack.

Nassim Hamadah, 39, Izz a-Din Atoun, 24, and Obaideh Amira, 30 – all from the Sur Bahir neighborhood in southeastern Jerusalem – are suspected of planning to carry out an attack, with guidance from Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip.

The three men face charges of involvement in a terrorist organization, plotting a terrorist action, contacting a foreign agent and other offenses.

They were exposed in a joint operation of the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and the Israel Police.

A Jerusalem District Court statement said that the three were known to the security establishment as “terrorist activists” and that they had carried out terrorist activities in the past.

Hamadah, the leader of the group, was in contact with Hamas activists who were expelled to the Gaza Strip as part of the deal to free the soldier Gilad Schalit in 2011, investigators said.

Hamadah was recruited by them to plan and carry out a shooting attack and brought with him the other two.

The investigation also revealed that Atoun and Amria visited Muhammad Atoun and Musa Akari in Turkey.

Atoun and Akari are two Hamas activists who were expelled as part of the “Schalit deal.”

During the visit, Izz a-Din Atoun received thousands of dollars from Hamas, the statement says.

Another person involved in the case – who wasn’t indicted with them because his investigation was not finished yet – is suspected of assisting in planning the attack, and of trying to recruit another Hamas activist to the group.

He is also suspected of trying to purchase weapons for this attack and for other attacks.

He was looking for a location next to the Samarian settlement of Oranit, northeast of Rosh Ha’ayin, where he wanted to carry out a shooting attack against soldiers, according to investigators.

The Jerusalem District Attorney’s Office asked the district court to extend the three suspects’ remand until the end of the legal proceedings against them.

The statement added that in the past year, more than 100 Palestinians were arrested as part of Hamas’s effort to “destabilize the security situation in Jerusalem and the West Bank.”