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Israel’s security forces are working “around the clock” to stop the wave of terrorism that has already cost the lives of 11 people, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Saturday night after news broke that another terror plot was thwarted.
“We are in the midst of a joint effort by the security forces to stop the recent terrorist attacks from continuing and to restore security to the citizens of Israel,” the PM said during a visit to the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) headquarters in Tel Aviv.
“Over Shabbat [Saturday], the Shin Bet, the Israel Police, the Israel National Counterterrorism Unit, and the IDF foiled a ticking bomb,” Bennett explained. He added: “However, we are certainly assuming that there will be many more attempts and we are currently working to thwart them.”
Israeli troops killed three members of a Palestinian terror cell in the West Bank town of Araba near Jenin in an exchange of fire early Saturday. Four Border Police officers were injured in the incident. One of them suffered severe wounds and was taken to the hospital, where he underwent surgery and is in stable condition.
According to Israeli intelligence, the Palestinian terrorists were on their way to carry out a large-scale attack. They were later identified as belonging to the US-designated Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group, which in response vowed to continue fighting Israel “in the name of the Palestinian people.”
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The Israel Defense Forces has publicly revealed Hamas’ deepest known terror tunnel to date. Members of the IDF’s Yahalom unit, which specializes in underground warfare, said the tunnel from the southern part of the Gaza Strip descends to 70 meters (230 feet) beneath the earth’s surface.
Israeli forces found the tunnel in October 2020 after the IDF’s underground barrier detected unusual activity. Although the discovery was reported at the time, details about the subterranean passageway have only now been released.
“We caught them right in the middle of their work,” a Yahalom officer told an Israeli reporter who rappelled down into the tunnel.
Israel detected the tunnel mere meters in front of the border barrier. The IDF believes that Hamas intended for the tunnel to extend into Israel as a means to attack residential communities and military facilities — terrorists would have been able to remain in the tunnel for several days to prepare for such an assault.
Terror tunnels emanating from Gaza had plagued southern Israel for years and were one of the reasons for the 2014 conflict between Gaza-based terror groups and Israeli troops, who crossed into the Strip to destroy cross-border tunnels.
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Israel and the United Arab Emirates concluded negotiations on a free trade deal, officials for the respective countries announced. Under the agreement, some 95 percent of traded products — including food, medicine, medical equipment, agricultural and cosmetic products — will not be subject to customs duties.
The arrangement will go into effect once it is signed by the countries’ economy ministers and ratified. “This milestone deal will build on the historic Abraham Accords and cement one of the world’s most important and promising emerging trading relationships,” UAE Foreign Trade Minister Thani Al Zeyoudi wrote on Twitter.
We have concluded talks on a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement with Israel and it is now ready for signature. This milestone deal will build on the historic Abraham Accords and cement one of the world’s most important and promising emerging trading relationships. pic.twitter.com/WgYgJ1YiLD
— د. ثاني الزيودي (@ThaniAlZeyoudi) April 1, 2022
Trade between the UAE and Israel has mushroomed since the two states established diplomatic relations in 2020 as part of the US-brokered Abraham Accords that also include Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. Last month, the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry stated that Israel could become one of the UAE’s top ten trading partners “in five years or more.”
Meanwhile, Israeli media suggested that a delegation from Jerusalem had recently met with Sudanese military officials during a secret visit to Khartoum. Israeli delegations have reportedly visited the north African country several times since its top general, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, seized power in a coup last October.
Al-Burhan has been a prominent player leading normalization efforts with Israel, although he has repeatedly said that Sudan’s relations with the Jewish state were exclusively focused on security, intelligence and military cooperation.
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Germany is interested in possibly procuring Israeli military technology, including air- and missile defense systems and unmanned aerial vehicles, local media reported. A senior delegation of the German Parliament’s Defense Committee recently met with IDF officials as part of a broader trip to the country.
The 11 German representatives spoke with Israeli Deputy Minister of Defense Alon Schuster, IDF Deputy Chief of Staff, Maj. Gen Herzl Halevi and Israeli parliamentarian Ram Ben-Barak, who chairs the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
They toured the Haifa Navy Base and experienced firsthand the Hezbollah cross-border tunnel system uncovered by the IDF.
During their visit, members of the delegation expressed particular interest in the Arrow 3 aerial-defense system, which is made by Israel Aerospace Industries and can intercept ballistic missiles in space.
The chairwoman of the Bundestag Defense Committee, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, who is also the deputy leader of the Free Democratic Party, said: “We seek to further develop the relationship with the defense sector in Israel in order to better understand how Israel handles threats and attacks.”
“I’m taking a lot home,” she added, “especially since we are in a situation where we are experiencing a war in Europe for the first time in many years, and Germany must confront it and ensure the country’s security. We can learn a lot from the Israelis and would like to collaborate more.”
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