Iraq News Now

The Israeli forces foiled a significant terror attack along the

Gaza border after four armed Palestinians attempted to infiltrate into southern

Israel, the military said on Saturday.

“We stopped a very large and significant terror attack,” Israeli

military Spokesperson Brig.-Gen. Ronen Manelis said.
According to the military the incident began at 4 am when the

four men were observed approaching the fence as a group.  The four, all

armed with AK-47 assault rifles, RPG launchers and hand grenades, were shot

dead after one of the men succeeded in scaling the border fence and hurled a

grenade at troops from the military’s Golani brigade.
Following the incident Israeli artillery struck two locations

east of Deir el-Balah in the center of the Hamas-run enclave.
According to reports in Gaza, three of the four Palestinians

killed were members of Hamas’ unit which is responsible for preventing Gazans

from approaching the border fence to infiltrate into Israel. They were said to

have been pursuing a fourth Palestinian who had been carrying explosives.
The three were identified by Palestinian media as 21 year-old

Abdullah Hamaida, 19 year-old Abdullah a-Ghari and 20 year-old Ahmed

Adini. 
But Manelis strongly denied the reports, saying that all four

had been armed and seen moving as a group towards the border fence.
“There is absolutely no way that they were part of Hamas border

group. They planned a terror attack,” he said, adding “the four were seen

acting as a group the entire time.”
According to Manelis, the four were all wearing uniforms and

armed with weapons, food, wire cutters and a medical kit.
“We are still not sure if it was targeting troops or civilians,

but we understand that this was a planned attack. You don’t wake up one day and

plan to carry out an attack and arm yourself with all these weapons,” he said.
While the military hasn’t yet determined which group is behind

the foiled attack, “Hamas is responsible for everything that happens in the

Strip,” Manelis said. “There are incidents in which we can say there is a

difference of one person who plans an attack like last week alone and there are

others, like this one, which we see with this one which was a planned group

attack.”
Their remains are in Israeli custody, Manelis said, not

expanding if their bodies would be returned.