Israeli shelling of Strip during summer
Photo: AP
Hamas militant sentenced for attempted murder, kidnap
Al-Qassam Brigades operative receives 15-year prison term for setting ambush in bid to kill or kidnap Israeli soldiers in the Strip during Operation Protective Edge.
A Be'er Sheva court sentenced a Hamas operative to 15-and-a-half years in prison on Tuesday for attempted murder in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge. The defendant had been arrested after an ambush he had set to kidnap Israeli soldiers was thwarted by the IDF's heavy artillery cover.
Mohammed Abu Draz joined the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades some five years ago and underwent training which included the building and deployment of explosive devices, urban warfare techniques, methods to infiltrate Israel, how to conduct ambushes against the IDF, and how to kidnap soldiers using terror tunnels.
IDF shelling of Gaza during Protective Edge (Photo: Reuters)
During the summer war he was ordered to cause the deaths of soldiers and attempt a kidnapping in a bird to use the abducted troops as leverage to release Palestinian security detainees.
Abu Draz received the directives from his Hamas commanders to hole up in a specified house near a mosque armed with an explosive device and set an ambush for Israeli soldiers.
Other operatives were instructed to wait by a tunnel dug near a kindergarten to either kill or kidnap soldiers. The militants were prevented from firing towards the soldiers only due to the heavy artillery cover from the IDF.
Abu Draz and some of the other terrorists were arrested by the IDF within the house they had been using for the ambush.
In the ruling, the judges wrote that "there is no doubt that the defendant's acts were serious and grave. He placed IDF soldiers in imminent danger and it was only due to the skill of the soldiers that no lives were lost due to the actions of the defendants and his friends."
