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BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces raided the center of the southern West Bank cities of Bethlehem and Beit Jala on Thursday afternoon, detaining four Palestinians under heavy armed escort.

In a rare daytime raid into the heart of Palestinian Authority-controlled areas, Israeli army forces accompanied by special plain-clothes soldiers raided several homes in the center of Bethlehem after passing through the center of nearby Beit Jala.

A Ma'an correspondent said that Israeli forces stormed several homes with police dogs and caused extensive damage to Palestinian private property in order to detain four civilians.

The civilians were identified as Omar al-Harimi, 46, and his son Samy, 21, as well as Abd al-Salam Souman, 45, and his son Muhammad, 14.

The Ma'an correspondent added that Israeli forces had blockaded the neighborhood and declared the area around it a "closed military zone," preventing the entry and exit of local residents amid heavy gunfire.

The correspondent added that Israeli forces also pointed green lasers at journalists and local residents during the raid to prevent their movement.

On Wednesday night, Israeli forces stormed the neighborhood of Wadi Maale, also located near the center of Bethlehem. During that raid, they raid the homes of two Palestinian civilians, Hamzah al-Kamel and Shehadah Muhammad Shehadah and detained them.

Israeli forces also raided a third home, but the unidentified resident fled the house before Israeli forces could detain him or her.

Both Bethlehem and Beit Jala are located in Area A, the less than 20% of the West Bank that is under Palestinian civil and military control according to the Oslo Accords.

The internationally recognized Palestinian territories of which the West Bank and East Jerusalem form a part have been occupied by the Israeli military since 1967.

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Israeli forces arrest 13 Palestinians, Israeli suspected of being behind bus bombing near Tel Aviv

A number of Palestinian militants arrested in Shin Bet raid in Bethlehem, including the two brothers charged with building the bomb and the militant suspected of planting and detonating it; militant cell admits to planning additional attacks.

By Gili Cohen | Jan. 2, 2014 | 10:51 PM
Haaretz

The Shin Bet security service has arrested 13 Palestinian militants and an Israeli Bedouin suspected of involvement in the bombing of a bus from Tel Aviv to Bat Yam two weeks ago, including the perpetrator himself, a gag order lifted on Thursday revealed.

The bomb exploded on December 22, shortly after the bus was evacuated due to a concerned passenger who alerted the driver after discovering a suspicious bag.

The driver parked the vehicle and ordered all passengers to disembark. Shortly thereafter, after a police bomb squad had arrived at the site and began inspecting the suspicious object, the bomb exploded, shattering all the bus windows and charring the sides of the vehicle.

None were wounded in the blast.

Israeli security forces carried out a series of arrests in the West Bank city of Bethlehem following the attack, detaining members of the Islamic Jihad militant group.

The Shin Bet believes that two of the central suspects in the plot to bomb the bus are former security prisoners in Israel: Shahada Ta'amri, 24, and his 21-year-old brother Hamdi Ta'amri, a former cadet in the Jericho Police officers' course. Another central suspect was named as Yousef Salame, 22.

The Israel Defense Forces and the Israel Police have also arrested Sami Harimi, a 20-year-old Palestinian who worked for a few months without legal permit at the Abulafia bakery in Jaffa.

The suspects confessed during interrogation to planning over the course of the last few months to carry out a mass murder attack in Israel.

They told the Shin Bet that the bomb was built by the Ta'amri brothers and Salame. It was composed of a 2 kilogram improvised explosive, nails, bolts, and an operating system attached to cellular phone to detonate by remote control.

The bomb was passed on to Harimi, who had previously been employed at Abulafia, inside a black handbag. Harimi took the bag with him to the southern Hebron Hills area on the morning of the attack, and snuck into Israel along with a few other illegal Palestinian workers through a breach in the security fence.

From there he caught a ride to Jaffa with an Israeli Bedouin known to police as an aide to illegal Palestinian workers. After praying at a Jaffa mosque, Harimi got on the No. 240 bus, placed the explosive in the center of the bus, disembarked, and after a few minutes called the cellular phone attached to the bomb and detonated it.

Harimi, who was arrested in Bethlehem on December 26, confessed to his involvement and testified that the cell had planned to carry out another major attack in Tel Aviv-Jaffa within days. The arrest of the cell has prevented that attack, the Shin Bet says.

The younger of the Ta'amri brothers gave interrogators other explosive materials weighing some 20 kilograms. The Shin Bet said that the investigation is still underway and more arrests were expected in the future.

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