IDF gets a big one

A man who is being called the 'mastermind' of February's suicide bombing in Dimona was liquidated on Sunday morning by IDF troops in Hebron. The man's house was surrounded by troops and he was ordered out. But instead of coming out, he started shooting. Curiously, although Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades originally claimed responsibility for the attack, and the 'Palestinian Authority's official newspapers eulogized the two terrorists who blew themselves up, the terrorist who was killed on Sunday was from Hamas. Then again, it was Hamas that created a poster to honor the attack.

The army said that in a joint IDF, Border Police and Shin Bet operation, the forces surrounded a house where the terrorist was hiding.

Shots were fired from the building and the forces returned fire, the army said. The army eventually bulldozed the house hours later when the man refused to surrender and the terrorist's body was seen being removed from the rubble.

The IDF added that during the heavy exchanges of fire, troops heard explosions from inside the house, presumably from bombs stored inside.

The man was identified as 25-year-old Shihab Na'atsha, a Hamas explosives engineer. The IDF said Na'atsha assembled the bomb belt used in the Dimona attack on February 4 that killed 73-year-old Lubov Razdolskaya and wounded 40 other people.

Also in Sunday morning's operation, the forces arrested Na'atsha's accomplice, Wa'al Bit'ar, as well as another Hamas terrorist, Abed Abu Aysha.

A Hamas statement confirmed the 25-year-old man was an operative from the group and said he fought troops for 12 hours before he was killed.

I have two videotapes for you on this one. The first is an Israeli internet television news report. Let's go to the videotape.