Senior police offical: Terrorists plotting to kidnap IDF soldier

Security forces do not have a specific warning of an attempt, but “there’s something in the air,” according to officer.

By BEN HARTMAN
IDF soldier checking his machine gun near Gaza border March 13 2014 (photo credit: BEN HARTMAN)
IDF soldier checking his machine gun near Gaza border March 13 2014
(photo credit: BEN HARTMAN)
Police have intelligence that terrorists intend to kidnap a soldier inside the Green Line, a senior police official said on Thursday.
Security forces do not have a specific warning of an attempt, but “there’s something in the air,” the officer added.
The comments came a week after 20-yearold Shelly Dadon of Afula was found murdered in Migdal Ha’emek in what police think was a terrorist attack – a suspicion that remains following a “dramatic development” in the case this week that cannot yet be reported.
In recent days, a number of Jewish cemeteries and buildings have been damaged in what is suspected of being a response to “price tag” vandalism targeting Arabs on both sides of the Green Line. In addition, the Prisons Service and Palestinian media reported on Thursday on a possible largescale hunger strike among security prisoners in Israel. Prisoner protests have sparked demonstrations outside the walls of prisons in the past.
The tensions are simmering just a week before Nakba Day on May 15, when Arabs mark what they consider the “disaster” of the State of Israel’s establishment in 1948. In recent years, the date has surpassed Land Day (March 30) as a day of protest in the Arab sector, and this year police are again preparing for protests and violence at sites across the country on Nakba Day.