The Shin Bet security agency revealed Sunday that its officers have uncovered a Hamas terror cell suspected of carrying out a drive-by shooting near the settlement of Shvut Rachel last month. Malachi Moshe Rosenfeld, 26, was critically injured and three others were less severely wounded in the attack. Rosenfeld later died of his injuries at the Shaare Tzedek Medical Center in Jerusalem. The members of the Hamas terror cell have been arrested. Some of the arrests were carried out by the IDF's Duvdevan special force unit. According to the Shin Bet, the terrorists arrested on suspicion of killing Rosenfeld are also suspected of carrying out a shooting attack two days earlier. In the previous attack, terrorists opened fire at an Israeli ambulance and several other Israeli vehicles near Beitin, a Palestinian town close to Ramallah. No one was injured in the shooting. The Shin Bet reported that the members of the cell have confessed to carrying out both attacks, as well as planning a failed attack that was supposed to have taken place on June 6. The Shin Bet also revealed that the mastermind behind the attacks, including Rosenfeld's murder, was Ahmed Najar, a Palestinian terrorist released from an Israeli prison in 2011 as part of the prisoner exchange deal for captive Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit. Najar was also responsible for obtaining the funding for the attacks, the Shin Bet said. As part of the Schalit deal, Najar was deported to the Gaza Strip. He later relocated to Jordan, where he continues to systematically plan attacks. He was not arrested in the raid, but his brother, Amjad, was. The Shin Bet noted that Amjad Najar had been arrested before, in the 1990s, for involvement in terrorist attacks. During his interrogation, he confessed to having facilitated the transfer of instructions, weapons and money from his brother to the cell members for the purposes of carrying out terrorist attacks. Another relative of the Najar brothers arrested in connection to the cell was Ahmed's father-in-law, Jamal Jamil Younis. According to the Shin Bet, he confessed to having destroyed the vehicle used in the drive-by shooting, mediating the purchase of weapons and having met with Najar in Jordan. A number of the cell members whom the Shin Bet suspect of involvement in its terrorist activity are currently in Palestinian custody and being processed by the Palestinian law enforcement mechanism. Maath Hamed, for example, the suspected gunman in both attacks, and Ahmed Shabrawi, who took part in the planning and storing of weapons, are both in Palestinian custody. Upon learning of the arrests, Malachi's father, Eliezer Rosenfeld, said Sunday: "I am grateful to the security forces, to the IDF and the Shin Bet, for making every effort and leaving no stone unturned to find the murderers so that they can be made to pay. But the feeling today is bad. The killers, Hamas, don't bother hiding the fact that they want only to kill and murder Jews and throw us into the sea, and we and our son paid a hefty price. "I hope that the courts and the authorities will prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. I can't say that I expect the death penalty, because that won't happen, but I hope that at least they will be given the harshest sentences possible, and their families, which encouraged them and sent them, will also be punished." Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon commented on the arrests Sunday, saying, "These arrests, like previous arrests, prove that if Israel had full freedom of action in Judea and Samaria we could strike at terrorists and their handlers, thwart attacks and apprehend murderers." "The uncovering of this cell further proves that Hamas has not abandoned its efforts to operate from Judea and Samaria, build terror infrastructure and execute attacks aimed at dragging the region into violence," Ya'alon said. "The attempts to sustain Hamas infrastructure in Judea and Samaria come from Hamas headquarters in Gaza and in Istanbul, where [senior Hamas official] Salah al-Arouri has been planning massive terrorist attacks against us by way of proxies in Judea and Samaria and in neighboring countries. Arouri's activities are being conducted in Turkey, a NATO member country that is allowing a terror base to operate on its soil."
