BICOM

The Israeli army arrested three Palestinians armed with knives and grenades yesterday after they entered Israel from Gaza.

The IDF said they were captured 20km from the Gaza border, 80 minutes after evidence of damage to the border fence was detected. The circumstances of their infiltration are currently being investigated. There were no reports of injuries and a police sapper and robot neutralised the grenades.

IDF Spokesperson Brig. Gen. Manelis said: “This incident shouldn’t have happened. It ended successfully without any injuries. It’s unclear why they weren’t caught immediately. The terrorists likely didn’t have a vehicle that picked them up, but the investigation isn’t over yet.”

Manelis said soldiers from the IDF’s Southern Command detected footprints and a breach in the fence at 09:10 yesterday morning and launched a manhunt which included the army, the police and civilians. The Palestinians were caught at 10:35, having reportedly breached the fence near Rafah at around 02:00.

The IDF said it was possible that the Palestinians wanted to be caught with the grenades so they would be imprisoned in Israel and not sent back to the Gaza Strip.

Gadi Yarkoni, head of the Eshkol Council area where the incident took place, said: “The IDF must investigate this incident to prevent such things from repeating themselves. Such an incident could have ended differently. There are many unknown factors here. On the one hand, they infiltrated with ammunition, and on the other hand, there was no resistance. With all the means at our disposal, we cannot afford to have armed people walking around 20 km from the fence.”

Knesset Member Haim Jelin of Yesh Atid, who lives near Gaza, said: “This is a serious mishap. Too many events have been happening in the past week, and the feeling is that the IDF is focusing on the larger things, the tunnels and the ‘march of the million,’ and isn’t paying attention to the smaller things.”

A further four Palestinians infiltrated Israel from Gaza near Kibbutz Kissufim on Saturday. They attempted to set fire to heavy engineering equipment used for the construction of the new underground security barrier. The infiltrators fled back into Gaza when Israeli soldiers approached them.

Hamas has organised a mass protest on Friday near the Gaza border fence and Israeli security agencies are concerned that there may be an attempt to cross the border into Israel. Manelis warned:  “We won’t allow a mass crossing of the fence. My advice is: Don’t try us. We are taking the challenges in the strip seriously, we are prepared for them and we are doing everything so that Israel’s citizens will be able to sit around the Passover Seder table calmly.”