The Latest on developments related to protests at the Gaza border (all times local):

An Israeli human rights group is calling on Israeli soldiers to refuse orders to open fire on Palestinian protesters in the Gaza Strip.

B'tselem spokesman Amit Gilutz says the group has never before taken such a step, but believes that Israeli tactics in last week's border confrontations were "manifestly illegal." Eighteen Palestinians were killed last Friday, including 13 in border protests.

The Israeli military says the tough response was justified because the protests were organized by the anti-Israel Hamas militant group. It also says the protesters were violent, throwing burning tires, firebombs and in several cases planting explosives along the border fence.

B'tselem says Israel has a right to defend its border, but live fire is justified only if there is "tangible and immediate mortal danger" to troops.

Israel's Shin Bet security service says it has arrested 10 Palestinians suspected of planning an attack against a navy ship off the Gaza coast.

The cell's alleged leader was being indicted Wednesday. The Shin Bet says Amin Jamaa's interrogation revealed a plan to send a decoy boat that would distract the navy ship, after which a rocket would be fired at it and militants would then try to abduct wounded soldiers on board as bargaining chips for future prisoner swaps.

The Shin Bet identified the men as members of the Islamic Jihad militant group.

The disclosure follows mass protests along the Israel-Gaza border last Friday in which 18 Palestinians were killed.</s>Shabak (Israel Security Agency) and the IDF on Wednesday cleared for publication that 10 Gazan Arabs were arrested in March for planning a terror attack on an IDF ship.

The arrests occurred on March 12, and were carried out by Shabak and the Israeli Navy. All of those arrested were suspected of gathering intelligence and planning a terror attack.

The suspects were in a watercraft that had traveled beyond the permitted fishing area, gathering intelligence on IDF forces. Squadron 916, which deals with ongoing security in Israel's southern waters, as well as another special Navy unit, confiscated the craft.

A joint Shabak-Israel Police investigation showed that one of those arrested, Amin Saadi Mohammed Jamaah, 24, is a fisherman and resident of Rafah, active in the Islamic Jihad terror group. Islamic Jihad leaders took part in planning the attack, using several boats.

Shabak's interrogation of Jamaah showed that one of the boats was to be used to distract the Navy, while a second attacked the Israeli ship by firing a Kornet missile at it with the purpose of injuring and killing the soldiers on the ship. At that point, the third Gazan ship would move towards the Navy ship, with the intention of kidnapping the soldiers on it and taking them hostage.

The interrogation also showed that Jamaah observed several of the IDF ships, collecting information regarding their placement, the number of soldiers on board, and the weapons each ship carried.On Wednesday, the Southern District Prosecutor's office will submit an indictment against Jamaah.

Israel's security forces responded, "Once again, we have proven that the terror organizations attempt to abuse the ease on restrictions Israel gives civilians - this time fishermen - in order to advance terror attacks in a way that harms the population in Gaza. Israel's security forces on the sea, on the land, and in the air, will continue working to foil terror attacks."</s>JERUSALEM — The Latest on developments related to protests at the Gaza border (all times local):

An Israeli human rights group is calling on Israeli soldiers to refuse orders to open fire on Palestinian protesters in the Gaza Strip.

B'tselem spokesman Amit Gilutz says the group has never before taken such a step, but believes that Israeli tactics in last week's border confrontations were "manifestly illegal." Eighteen Palestinians were killed last Friday, including 13 in border protests.

The Israeli military says the tough response was justified because the protests were organized by the anti-Israel Hamas militant group. It also says the protesters were violent, throwing burning tires, firebombs and in several cases planting explosives along the border fence.

B'tselem says Israel has a right to defend its border, but live fire is justified only if there is "tangible and immediate mortal danger" to troops.

Israel's Shin Bet security service says it has arrested 10 Palestinians suspected of planning an attack against a navy ship off the Gaza coast.

The cell's alleged leader was being indicted Wednesday. The Shin Bet says Amin Jamaa's interrogation revealed a plan to send a decoy boat that would distract the navy ship, after which a rocket would be fired at it and militants would then try to abduct wounded soldiers on board as bargaining chips for future prisoner swaps.

The Shin Bet identified the men as members of the Islamic Jihad militant group.

The disclosure follows mass protests along the Israel-Gaza border last Friday in which 18 Palestinians were killed.</s>JERUSALEM (AP) - The Latest on developments related to protests at the Gaza border (all times local):

An Israeli human rights group is calling on Israeli soldiers to refuse orders to open fire on Palestinian protesters in the Gaza Strip.

B'tselem spokesman Amit Gilutz says the group has never before taken such a step, but believes that Israeli tactics in last week's border confrontations were "manifestly illegal." Eighteen Palestinians were killed last Friday, including 13 in border protests.

The Israeli military says the tough response was justified because the protests were organized by the anti-Israel Hamas militant group. It also says the protesters were violent, throwing burning tires, firebombs and in several cases planting explosives along the border fence.

B'tselem says Israel has a right to defend its border, but live fire is justified only if there is "tangible and immediate mortal danger" to troops.

Israel's Shin Bet security service says it has arrested 10 Palestinians suspected of planning an attack against a navy ship off the Gaza coast.

The cell's alleged leader was being indicted Wednesday. The Shin Bet says Amin Jamaa's interrogation revealed a plan to send a decoy boat that would distract the navy ship, after which a rocket would be fired at it and militants would then try to abduct wounded soldiers on board as bargaining chips for future prisoner swaps.

The Shin Bet identified the men as members of the Islamic Jihad militant group.

The disclosure follows mass protests along the Israel-Gaza border last Friday in which 18 Palestinians were killed.</s>JERUSALEM — The Latest on developments related to protests at the Gaza border (all times local):

An Israeli human rights group is calling on Israeli soldiers to refuse orders to open fire on Palestinian protesters in the Gaza Strip.

B’tselem spokesman Amit Gilutz says the group has never before taken such a step, but believes that Israeli tactics in last week’s border confrontations were “manifestly illegal.” Eighteen Palestinians were killed last Friday, including 13 in border protests.

The Israeli military says the tough response was justified because the protests were organized by the anti-Israel Hamas militant group. It also says the protesters were violent, throwing burning tires, firebombs and in several cases planting explosives along the border fence.

B’tselem says Israel has a right to defend its border, but live fire is justified only if there is “tangible and immediate mortal danger” to troops.

Israel’s Shin Bet security service says it has arrested 10 Palestinians suspected of planning an attack against a navy ship off the Gaza coast.

The cell’s alleged leader was being indicted Wednesday. The Shin Bet says Amin Jamaa’s interrogation revealed a plan to send a decoy boat that would distract the navy ship, after which a rocket would be fired at it and militants would then try to abduct wounded soldiers on board as bargaining chips for future prisoner swaps.

The Shin Bet identified the men as members of the Islamic Jihad militant group.

The disclosure follows mass protests along the Israel-Gaza border last Friday in which 18 Palestinians were killed.</s>Security forces arrested a member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group off the Gaza coast suspected of planning to sink an Israeli naval patrol boat and kidnap any survivors last month, Israel revealed on Wednesday.

The plan was to use three boats to lure in a navy ship, fire a missile at it and then seize the wounded and slain soldiers, according to a joint statement by the Shin Bet security service and Israel Defense Forces.

This plot was foiled on the night of March 12, when the navy’s 916th Patrol Squadron stopped a Palestinian boat that had left the designated Gaza fishing zone.

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A video of the nighttime arrest shows well-armed naval special forces boarding the fishing boat and calling for the 10 people on board to put their hands up and get down. The boat was impounded in the Ashdod port.

The crew was brought into Israeli custody for questioning, including Amin Saadi Muhammad Jumma’a, 24, a member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad who told interrogators that he had received instructions from his commanders to prepare to carry out the attack on Israeli Navy ships, according to the Shin Bet and IDF.

The planned attack was meant to be a continuation of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s vendetta against the IDF for the demolition of the group’s tunnel on October 30, in which several of its members were killed.

Two of the others on board are also suspected of having been part of the plot. The other seven were released after their interrogation, the Shin Bet said.

Jumma’a, a resident of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, told interrogators that the plan was for one boat to act as a diversion by leaving the fishing zone so that a navy ship would approach it.

“A second boat would attack the ship, firing a Kornet (anti-tank) missile at it, with the intention of causing injury and death to the soldiers on board,” the statement said

A third boat would then arrive on the scene and take the wounded soldiers hostage and steal the bodies of those killed, the security forces said.

“In order to prepare for the attack, Jumma’a conducted a number of observation missions on navy ships and collected intelligence about the location of the navy ships, the number of soldiers on them and the types of weaponry on board,” the statement said.

Jumma’a was indicted in a Beersheba court on Wednesday on a litany of charges, including planning to conduct a terror attack, acquiring weapons and belonging to a terrorist organization.

According to the charge sheet, Jumma’a joined the Islamic Jihad in 2016. A year later, he agreed to conduct the attack on the navy in exchange for $5,000.

In addition, he was charged with transporting 300 kilograms (660 pounds) of explosives on a fishing boat from Egypt to the Gaza Strip on behalf of the Hamas terrorist organization sometime in either 2012 or 2013, and of transporting 150 packages of fiberglass from Egypt to Gaza for Hamas for the purposes of manufacturing weapons in 2014 or 2015.

He was also accused of smuggling four AK-47 assault rifles and a pistol from Egypt to Gaza through an underground tunnel for Hamas in 2015.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman hailed the joint IDF-Shin Bet operation. “The complexities of the Gaza border are varied and complicated. [But] the nation of Israel has someone it can count on,” Liberman wrote on Twitter.

Netanyahu said the plot showed “true intentions of the terror groups in Gaza, who are trying to camouflage their murderous plans by organizing provocations along the security fence.”

On Friday, over 30,000 Palestinians demonstrated along the Gaza border, in what Israel describes as a riot orchestrated by the Hamas terrorist group, which rules Gaza, and what Palestinians say was supposed to be a peaceful protest.

There were discrepancies in Palestinian reports on the Gaza death toll from Friday. While Hamas claimed Monday that 18 had died, the official news agency of the Palestinian Authority had the number at 16. Israel has no official death toll figures.

IDF Spokesman Brig. Gen. Ronen Manelis said on Saturday that all those killed were engaged in violence. Manelis said on Friday evening that the army had faced “a violent, terrorist demonstration at six points” along the fence. He said the IDF used “pinpoint fire” wherever there were attempts to breach or damage the security fence.

The Shin Bet and IDF accused the Iran-backed Islamic Jihad of taking advantage of the “civilian comforts” granted by Israel to the residents of Gaza, specifically fishing rights, in order to “advance terror attacks.”

In addition to the planned naval attack, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad has already carried out at least two other acts of revenge on Israel for destroying its tunnel on October 30.

One month later, the group fired a barrage of mortar shells at an army position northeast of the Gaza Strip, causing damage but no injury. In December, the group also fired mortar shells at southern Israel in order to disrupt an event honoring an IDF soldier who was killed in the 2014 Gaza war and whose remains are currently being held by the Hamas terrorist group.</s>A terror cell based out of Gaza planned to carry out a coordinated strike against an Israeli navy vessel, Israel's Shin Bet Security Agency revealed Wednesday. 



The Shin Bet statement said the cell, led by 24-year-old Islamic Jihad member Amin Sa'adi Mohammad Jama'a, carried out surveillance activities while aboard fishing boats sailing out of Gaza.



Ten members of the cell were arrested on March 12 and taken into Israeli custody for questioning.</s>Israel’s Shin Bet security service is reported to have arrested 10 Palestinian nationals suspected of plotting an attack on an Israeli naval ship in the Gaza Strip waters.

Amin Jamaa, the cell’s alleged leader, appeared before court on Wednesday. The Shin Bet service said that while being interrogated, he revealed a plan to deploy a decoy boat tasked with diverting the attention of the navy ship.

Separately, a rocket was set to be fired at it, and militants were poised to try to kidnap injured soldiers from aboard the ship to use them later in prisoner swaps.

The Shin Bet identified the group as Islamic Jihad militants.

The news comes right on the heels of mass protests, which started on Friday, along the Israel-Gaza border in the course of the so-called Great March of Return, in which 18 Palestinians died and roughly a thousand sustained wounds.</s>Prosecutors filed an indictment Wednesday against Security forces arrested 10 Gazans last month on suspicion that they were planning to attack an Israel Navy vessel.

In a joint statement announcing the arrests, the General Security Service (Shin Bet) and IDF Spokesman’s Unit said the men, residents of the city of Rafah, on the Gaza-Egypt border, were arrested on March 12 after a coast guard patrol stopped a Gaza boat that had violated the naval blockade on the Strip by leaving the Gaza fishing zone. The navy said the fishing boat was gathering information about Israel’s marine movements.

The statement said that Shin Bet and Israel Police interrogators believe that 24-year-old Amin Sa’adi Mohammed Jama’a, a fisherman from Rafah, is a terrorist affiliated with the Islamic Jihad group and was acting on orders from the group’s leadership as part of an operation to use several boats in order to plan the attack.

Jama’a told Shin Bet interrogators that one boat was to serve as a decoy to attract the navy’s attention, while a second boat would fire a Cornet missile at the navy vessel. A third boat would then approach the damaged ship in an attempt to kidnap Israeli sailors. He is also believed to have gathered intelligence about naval movements, including troop numbers and weapons on board navy vessels.

The arrest is the latest in a string of operations by intelligence and operational security forces to thwart potential attacks, including the demolition of several tunnels under the Gaza-Israel border fence and several more land infiltrations.

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman praised the intelligence service, writing on Twitter that “once against the IDF and Shin Bet have prevented a terror attack against our forces. The challenges on the Gaza border are wide-ranging and complicated. Israel has (a powerful army upon which) to rely.

“I hope that this time our friends on the left won’t demand a commission of inquiry,” Liberman said.</s>Israel’s Shin Bet security service says it has arrested 10 Palestinians suspected of planning an attack against a navy ship off the Gaza coast.

The cell’s alleged leader was being indicted Wednesday. The Shin Bet says Amin Jamaa’s interrogation revealed a plan to send a decoy boat that would distract the navy ship, after which a rocket would be fired at it and militants would then try to abduct wounded soldiers on board as bargaining chips for future prisoner swaps.

The Shin Bet identified the men as members of the Islamic Jihad militant group.

The disclosure follows mass protests along the Israel-Gaza border last Friday in which 18 Palestinians were killed.
Shin Bet and the Israeli Defence Forces announce the arrests of eleven suspected members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group off the Gazan coast suspected of planning an attack on the Israeli Navy.