Members of the Palestinian terror cell arrested last month in the Ramallah area tried to create and launch rockets already at the start of the war in Gaza, according to new details obtained by Ynet.

Ynet reports that the cell occupied a great deal of the security establishment’s attention, including the IDF Central Command, the Shin Bet, and the Minority Affairs Unit of the Yehuda and Shomron police district. The threat was viewed very seriously—a threat of rocket fire in Yehudah and Shomron was considered a major potential escalation that would dramatically affect the security balance in the area.

Security forces captured the cell after covert investigation and located hidden launch sites and storage areas.

The cell leader, Abdullah al-Khatib, began attempting rocket launches immediately after the October 7 massacre. Three days after the war began, he launched a drone carrying an improvised explosive device over the Sde Ephraim farm in the Binyamin region. Security camera footage shows an explosive device being dropped from the drone and detonating above the farm. B’Chasdei Hashem, there were no casualties in that incident.

Later, Al-Khatib recruited his brother and a friend and raised funds from their businesses to continue his rocket-launching efforts. At one stage, he instructed his brother and friend to conduct a rocket test targeting the Chareidi city of Modi’in Illit in the Binyamin region, using a cellphone timer to activate the launch. The rockets failed to launch due to what al-Khatib described as a “technical malfunction.”

Al-Khatib said in his interrogation that he intended to fire rockets toward Tel Aviv in order to stop the war. The cell invested about 250,000 shekels ($75,000) in weapons and equipment to establish a rocket-launching capability.

In total, Israeli security forces uncovered about 15 rockets ready for launch in the Ramallah area, along with a makeshift explosives lab.

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)