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.
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