The Israeli security forces have killed a terrorist who masterminded the recent abduction of an Israeli teenager’s body from a West Bank hospital.
Mohammed Ayman al-Saadi, a Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terror operative, was the “mastermind” behind the snatching of the body of a 17-year-old Israeli-Druze boy who was rushed for emergency surgeries to a West Bank hospital following a car crash nearby, the Israeli media reported.
Ayman al-Saadi was among the two terrorists eliminated during an overnight counter-terrorism strike by the ID, the media reports on Thursday confirmed. Several wanted terrorists were also reportedly arrested during the operation that took place in the Palestinian terrorist stronghold of Jenin.
Last Tuesday, Palestinian gunmen stormed a hospital, removing the boy’s body from life-support and abducting his body. They wanted Israel to release convicted terrorists in exchange for the teenager’s body.
The Palestinian terrorists were forced to release the body only after Israeli-Druze, a non-Muslim monitory in Israel that loyally serves in the IDF, threatened to march into Jenin to recover the body themselves. The Israeli military also vowed to conduct “large-scale operation” in Jenin, a terrorist stronghold, if the body was not returned to the family.
Reporting the IDF strike aimed at PIJ terror operatives, the Israeli news website Ynet News wrote:
Two Palestinian terror group fighters were killed in clashes with Israeli troops that broke out during a pre-dawn IDF raid on a suburb of the northern West Bank city of Jenin.The shootout in the village of Wadi Burqin ensued during a crackdown on wanted persons suspected of involvement in terrorist activity. Five suspects were arrested including Islamic Jihad operative Wassam Faiz who planned to detonate a car bomb against Israeli targets
The Times of Israel reported the slain PIJ terrorist’s link to the body snatching incident:
A senior Palestinian terror operative killed during overnight clashes with Israeli troops near Jenin helped mastermind the recent kidnapping of Israeli teenager Tiran Fero’s body from a hospital in the West Bank city, according to a report Thursday.Fero, a 17-year-old member of the Druze minority, was critically injured in a car crash in Jenin and taken to a hospital there, where he died and his body was snatched by unidentified gunmen.Mohammed Ayman Saadi, a field commander for Palestinian Islamic Jihad, was present during last week’s abduction, the Ynet news site reported. He was involved in the act’s planning and in the decision where to hide the body, and directed the negotiations with the Palestinian Authority to release it, the report said.Along with Saadi, Na’im Zubeidi from the Fatah-linked al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades was killed during the pre-dawn raid near Jenin. Zubeidi is a cousin of Zakaria Zubeidi, a notorious Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terrorist who masterminded attacks during the Second Intifada and managed to briefly escape from Israeli prison last year.A report last week said the head of the armed group that kidnapped Fero’s body was related to Zakaria Zubeidi, but he was affiliated with PIJ. Various armed factions are known to work together in Jenin against the Israel Defense Forces.Photos Thursday from the funeral procession in Jenin for Zubeidi and Saadi showed both their bodies draped in PIJ flags.
Eliminating senior Islamic Jihad (PIJ) operatives could lead the enraged terrorists in Gaza to fire rockets at Israeli civilians, Israel’s security agencies believe. “Several army and intelligence sources [said] on Thursday that there is suspicion of possible rocket launches from the Gaza Strip after two Palestinian terrorists were killed in clashes with the Israeli military (IDF) in the West Bank,” the Israeli TV channel i24News reported.
The Iran-funded PIJ, which operates a Jenin and other West Bank cities, also coordinates terrorist operations with the Gaza-based Islamic terror group Hamas. In early November, the PIJ fired a rocket barrage into southern Israel, prompting the IDF to destroy a Gaza rocket factory.
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