Inspectors at the Kerem Shalom crossing discovered firearms, silencers and ammunition hidden in a shipment of furniture headed from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank on Wednesday.
The shipment raised the suspicions of the inspectors at the crossing, who opened up the furniture and found the weapons hidden inside the furniture.
Authorities believe the weapons were headed to terrorist groups in the West Bank. The thwarted smuggling attempt comes less than a day after over 100 rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip toward southern Israel.
Border Police thwart PIJ attempt to smuggle phones into prisons
Additionally on Wednesday, Border Police officers thwarted an attempt by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorist movement to smuggle six cell phones into Israeli prisons after a detainee swallowed the phones.
Cell phones seized by Border Police after an attempt by the PIJ to smuggle them into an Israeli prison. (credit: ISRAEL POLICE)The detainee, a member of the PIJ, had given himself in to IDF soldiers on Tuesday and was being transferred for questioning by the Shin Bet.
During the transfer, Border Police officers searched him and, using technological equipment, discovered the phones he had swallowed. The suspect admitted that he had swallowed the phones and aimed to smuggle them into an Israeli prison.
The suspect proceeded to remove two of the phones, but the officers decided to conduct an additional check and discovered that he had swallowed another four phones.
A preliminary investigation found that the PIJ provided NIS 30,000 per phone to fund the smuggling attempt.
Gaza terrorist groups continue to attempt to feed West Bank terrorism
Terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip have repeatedly attempted to smuggle weapons and cash to the West Bank.
In September, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee announced that the IDF and Shin Bet thwarted a Hamas terrorism financing scheme using Gazans who were entering Israel for humanitarian reasons or with work permits and student activists at the Birzeit University in the West Bank.
The terrorist movement used the financing scheme in order to transfer funds from the Gaza Strip to Hamas members in Turkey and to finance terrorist activities in the West Bank and Turkey.
In January, the Shin Bet revealed that it had uncovered a scheme in which Hamas used Palestinians from the West Bank, sometimes without their knowledge, to transfer funds and weapons for terrorist activity.
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