Two Centuries Before The Sixth Seal (Revelation 6:12)

The worst earthquake in Massachusetts history 260 years ago
It happened before, and it could happen again.
By Hilary Sargent @lilsarg
Boston.com Staff | 11.19.15 | 5:53 AM
On November 18, 1755, Massachusetts experienced its largest recorded earthquake.
The earthquake occurred in the waters off Cape Ann, and was felt within seconds in Boston, and as far away as Nova Scotia, the Chesapeake Bay, and upstate New York, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Seismologists have since estimated the quake to have been between 6.0 and 6.3 on the Richter scale, according to the Massachusetts Historical Society.
While there were no fatalities, the damage was extensive.
According to the USGS, approximately 100 chimneys and roofs collapsed, and over a thousand were damaged.
The worst damage occurred north of Boston, but the city was not unscathed.
A 1755 report in The Philadelphia Gazette described the quake’s impact on Boston:
“There was at first a rumbling noise like low thunder, which was immediately followed with such a violent shaking of the earth and buildings, as threw every into the greatest amazement, expecting every moment to be buried in the ruins of their houses. In a word, the instances of damage done to our houses and chimnies are so many, that it would be endless to recount them.”
The quake sent the grasshopper weathervane atop Faneuil Hall tumbling to the ground, according to the Massachusetts Historical Society.
An account of the earthquake, published in The Pennsylvania Gazette on December 4, 1755.
The earthquake struck at 4:30 in the morning, and the shaking lasted “near four minutes,” according to an entry John Adams, then 20, wrote in his diary that day.
The brief diary entry described the damage he witnessed.
“I was then at my Fathers in Braintree, and awoke out of my sleep in the midst of it,” he wrote. “The house seemed to rock and reel and crack as if it would fall in ruins about us. 7 Chimnies were shatter’d by it within one mile of my Fathers house.”
The shaking was so intense that the crew of one ship off the Boston coast became convinced the vessel had run aground, and did not learn about the earthquake until they reached land, according to the Massachusetts Historical Society.
In 1832, a writer for the Hampshire (Northampton) Gazette wrote about one woman’s memories from the quake upon her death.
“It was between 4 and 5 in the morning, and the moon shone brightly. She and the rest of the family were suddenly awaked from sleep by a noise like that of the trampling of many horses; the house trembled and the pewter rattled on the shelves. They all sprang out of bed, and the affrightted children clung to their parents. “I cannot help you dear children,” said the good mother, “we must look to God for help.”
The Cape Ann earthquake came just 17 days after an earthquake estimated to have been 8.5-9.0 on the Richter scale struck in Lisbon, Portugal, killing at least 60,000 and causing untold damage.
There was no shortage of people sure they knew the impretus for the Cape Ann earthquake.
According to many ministers in and around Boston, “God’s wrath had brought this earthquake upon Boston,” according to the Massachusetts Historical Society.
In “Verses Occasioned by the Earthquakes in the Month of November, 1755,” Jeremiah Newland, a Taunton resident who was active in religious activities in the Colony, wrote that the earthquake was a reminder of the importance of obedience to God.
“It is becaufe we broke thy Laws,
that thou didst shake the Earth.
…
O what a Day the Scriptures say,
the EARTHQUAKE doth foretell;
O turn to God; lest by his Rod,
he cast thee down to Hell.”
Boston Pastor Jonathan Mayhew warned in a sermon that the 1755 earthquakes in Massachusetts and Portugal were “judgments of heaven, at least as intimations of God’s righteous displeasure, and warnings from him.”
There were some, though, who attempted to put forth a scientific explanation for the earthquake.
Well, sort of.
In a lecture delivered just a week after the earthquake, Harvard mathematics professor John Winthrop said the quake was the result of a reaction between “vapors” and “the heat within the bowels of the earth.” But even Winthrop made sure to state that his scientific theory “does not in the least detract from the majesty … of God.”
It has been 260 years since the Cape Ann earthquake. Some experts, including Boston College seismologist John Ebel, think New England could be due for another significant quake.
In a recent Boston Globe report, Ebel said the New England region “can expect a 4 to 5 magnitude quake every decade, a 5 to 6 every century, and a magnitude 6 or above every thousand years.”
If the Cape Ann earthquake occurred today, “the City of Boston could sustain billions of dollars of earthquake damage, with many thousands injured or killed,” according to a 1997 study by the US Army Corps of Engineers.

Israel foils Hamas plot to launch series of bomb attacks outside the Temple Walls: Revelation 11 2

Israel foils Hamas plot to launch series of bomb attacks against Jews

Seven West Bank suspects recruited by Hamas to carry out attacks on Israelis were captured by the Shin Bet and the IDF.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF

Published: SEPTEMBER 19, 2022 15:43

Updated: SEPTEMBER 19, 2022 19:33

Members of the Al-Qassam Brigades take part in a military festival organized by Hamas to honor the dead Palestinians who were killed by the Israeli army in the West Bank, Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, in Gaza City, on October 4, 2021

Israeli security forces earlier this month arrested a group of Hamas-affiliated suspects in the West Bank who were planning bombing attacks against Israeli forces and civilians, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) announced on Monday.

Seven Palestinians from Hebron and Nablus were arrested and interrogated in the operation, led by the Shin Bet and the IDF.

From the suspects’ interrogations, the Shin Bet revealed they had been recruited to the Gaza-based terrorist organization by a Hamas operative named Yahya Amer Muhammad Abu

How seven West Bank Palestinians were recruited by Hamas

The 26-year-old Abu Sayfan, a resident of the Nuseirat refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, is responsible for the recruitment of Palestinian youths to the terrorist group and the dissemination of anti-Zionist and antisemitic incitement on social media.

Abu Sayfan instructed and guided the recruited suspects on how to make explosive devices, in addition to ordering them to carry out the attacks.

The suspects received money to purchase weaponry, explosives and other equipment and substances that were all confiscated by the Israeli security forces.

The suspects were named as Massab Himouni, Ahmad Abu Dawid, Aziz a-Din Al-Zin, Amad Abu Khalaf, Abdullah Quwasma and Maamoun and Khamel Hanani. Indictments for “severe security violations” were brought against most of the suspects, with more charges set to be filed in the coming days, the Shin Bet said.

The arrests highlight Hamas’s efforts to destabilize the West Bank and incite violence by recruiting Palestinian youths, the Shin Bet said, and that the Israeli security establishment will “continue to thwart attempts by Hamas to promote terrorist attacks against Israel.”

Israel has been facing an increased wave of terror in recent months. Due to the situation, and particularly shooting attacks against IDF troops and Israeli civilians in the West Bank, the IDF has decided to reduce the number of troops taking furlough in the Judea and Samaria Division.

According to data released by the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), there were at least 23 shooting attacks in the West Bank and Jerusalem in August, an increase of more than 50% from the 15 that took place in July. In addition, there were 135 Molotov cocktail attacks compared to only 75 in July (an 80% increase) and 39 pipe bombs in August vs 27 in the previous month (44% more).

India And Pakistan Will Eventually Abandon Peace Efforts: Revelation 8

India And Pakistan Can’t Afford To Abandon Peace Efforts – OpEd

Flags of India and Pakistan

By Saad Hafiz

For the last seventy-five years, the deep-set hostility between India and Pakistan has posed a grave danger to peace and security in South Asia. Religious, ideological, and cultural divides have hardened into a dangerous confrontation. The troubled relationship has cast a long shadow over a vast region facing abject poverty, extreme deprivation, and the prospect of nuclear Armageddon.

The bloody partition of India in 1947, subsequent wars and conflict over Kashmir, and Pakistan’s deep resentment over India’s support in the break-up of Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh in 1971 have left a bitter legacy challenging to overcome. Today, many Indians and Pakistanis view each other negatively. And domestic constituencies that could drive peace and reconciliation are virtually non-existent. As journalist Tim Marshall contends, “India and Pakistan can agree on one thing: neither wants the other around.”

The tit-for-tat nuclear tests by India and Pakistan in 1998 were seen domestically as a way to assert greatness. But the international reaction rightly was very unfavorable. Undoubtedly, the nuclear tests sped up the arms race between enemies in a self-defeating cycle of escalation and were a recipe for horrific disaster.

Since 1998, the threat of nuclear exchange has risen as both countries have developed comparable and formidable atomic arsenals. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Yearbook 2022, Pakistan has 165 nuclear warheads compared to India’s 160 warheads. The yearbook states that India and Pakistan appear to be expanding their nuclear arsenals and continue to develop lethal weapon delivery systems. Still, it is a conflict that neither side can win decisively without suffering grievous damage.

Significantly, the political leadership in India and Pakistan hasn’t shown statesmanship, maturity, and vision. It ignores the critical point that India-Pakistan cooperation is central to South Asia’s future. Instead of reducing tensions, encouraging confidence-building mechanisms, and conflict reduction, the leadership has fostered mutual antipathy between the countries through mindless jingoism and ceaseless propaganda. It has also failed to manage spoilers who have derailed previous India-Pakistan peace efforts.  

Leaders are reluctant to take risks avoiding the inevitable setbacks and violent opposition involved in a sustained peace process. Expressing support for peace and reconciliation is a surefire strategy for political oblivion. A recent example is the refusal of the Pakistani leadership to consider a potential offer of Indian food imports in the wake of the devastating floods in Pakistan. It missed yet another opportunity to start a thaw in the frozen relationship.

Yet, Pakistan needs peace more to halt a downward slide heavily linked to the human and material cost of the ruinous rivalry with India. Policymakers in Pakistan are finding it increasingly difficult to counter India’s widening economic, political, and military advantage. An exploding population, rudderless political system, sick economy, vulnerability to climate change disasters, and terrorist threats have heightened Pakistan’s woes.

On the other hand, global powers and investors consider India a much better bet than Pakistan and a valuable counterweight to China. India has embarked on a strategy of attrition against Pakistan that may succeed but at the cost of delaying its unfulfilled desire to rise to the world stage.

India and Pakistan have poor human development indicators (per capita income, health, and education). Unsurprisingly, India and Pakistan are rated 130 and 150 on the global Human Development Index (HDI). It reflects the skewed priorities of both countries. For instance, while annual defense spending for India and Pakistan is around $77 billion and $12 billion, in contrast, health and education are allocated $25 billion and $79 billion in India and a mere $3 billion and $8 billion in Pakistan annually. But Pakistan is steadily losing ground to India even in HDI terms, particularly in education. 

The roadmap for India and Pakistan is to compromise through engagement and dialogue. Both sides should set aside territorial disputes that need time to resolve (Kashmir, Siachen Glacier, and Sir Creek). Instead, India and Pakistan must cooperate on trade ties, cross-border terrorism, and climate change. It is not a quick way to reach an agreement but a dependable one.

Saad Hafiz is an analyst and commentator. He can be reached at shgcci@gmail.com. 

Putin escalates Ukraine war, issues nuclear threat to West: Revelation 16

Guy FaulconbridgeSeptember 21, 20223:56 AM MDTLast Updated 3 hours ago

LONDON, Sept 21 (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered Russia’s first mobilisation since World War Two and backed a plan to annex swathes of Ukraine, warning the West he was not bluffing when he said he’d be ready to use nuclear weapons to defend Russia.

In the biggest escalation of the Ukraine war since Moscow’s Feb. 24 invasion, Putin explicitly raised the spectre of a nuclear conflict, approved a plan to annex a chunk of Ukraine the size of Hungary, and called up 300,000 reservists.

“If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will without doubt use all available means to protect Russia and our people – this is not a bluff,” Putin said in a televised address to the nation.

Citing NATO expansion towards Russia’s borders, Putin said the West was plotting to destroy his country, engaging in “nuclear blackmail” by allegedly discussing the potential use of nuclear weapons against Moscow, and accused the United States, the European Union and Britain of encouraging Ukraine to push military operations into Russia itself.

“In its aggressive anti-Russian policy, the West has crossed every line,” Putin said. “This is not a bluff. And those who try to blackmail us with nuclear weapons should know that the weathervane can turn and point towards them.”

The address, which followed a critical Russian battlefield defeat in northeastern Ukraine, fuelled speculation about the course of the war, the 69-year-old Kremlin chief’s own future, and showed Putin was doubling down on what he calls his “special military operation” in Ukraine.

In essence, Putin is betting that by increasing the risk of a direct confrontation between the U.S.-led NATO military alliance and Russia — a step towards World War Three — the West will blink over its support for Ukraine, something it has shown no sign of doing so far.

Putin’s war in Ukraine has killed tens of thousands, unleashed an inflationary wave through the global economy and triggered the worst confrontation with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when many feared nuclear war imminent.

MOBILISATION

Putin signed a decree on partially mobilising Russia’s reserves, arguing that Russian soldiers were effectively facing the full force of the “collective West” which has been supplying Kyiv’s forces with advanced weapons, training and intelligence.

Speaking shortly after Putin, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said that Russia would draft some 300,000 additional personnel out of some 25 million potential fighters at Moscow’s disposal.

The mobilisation, the first since the Soviet Union battled Nazi Germany in World War Two, begins immediately.

Such a move is risky for Putin, who has so far tried to preserve a semblance of peace in the capital and other major cities where support for the war is lower than in the provinces.

Ever since Putin was handed the nuclear briefcase by Boris Yeltsin on the last day of 1999, his overriding priority has been to restore at least some of the great power status which Moscow lost when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

Putin has repeatedly railed against the United States for driving NATO’s eastward expansion, especially its courting of ex-Soviet republics such as Ukraine and Georgia which Russia regards as part of its own sphere of influence, an idea both nations reject.

Putin said that top government officials in several unnamed “leading” NATO countries had spoken of potentially using nuclear weapons against Russia.

He also accused the West of risking “nuclear catastrophe,” by allowing Ukraine to shell the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant which is under Russian control, something Kyiv has denied.

ANNEXATION

Putin gave his explicit support to referendums that will be held in coming days in swathes of Ukraine controlled by Russian troops — the first step to formal annexation of a chunk of Ukraine the size of Hungary.

The self-styled Donetsk (DPR) and the Luhansk People’s Republics (LPR), which Putin recognised as independent just before the invasion, and Russian-installed officials in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions have asked for votes.

“We will support the decision on their future, which will be made by the majority of residents in the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson,” Putin said.

“We cannot, have no moral right to hand over people close to us to the executioners, we cannot but respond to their sincere desire to determine their own fate.”

That paves the way for the formal annexation of about 15% of Ukrainian territory.

The West and Ukraine have condemned the referendum plan as an illegal sham and vowed never to accept its results. French President Emmanuel Macron said the plans were “a parody.” Kyiv has denied persecuting ethnic Russians or Russian-speakers.

But by formally annexing Ukrainian territories, Putin is giving himself the potential pretext to use nuclear weapons from Russia’s arsenal, the largest in the world.

Russia’s nuclear doctrine allows the use of such weapons if weapons of mass destruction are used against it or if the Russian state faces an existential threat from conventional weapons.

“It is in our historical tradition, in the fate of our people, to stop those striving for world domination, who threaten the dismemberment and enslavement of our Motherland, our Fatherland,” Putin said.

“We will do it now, and it will be so,” said Putin. “I believe in your support.”

Iran wants another Obama Deal: Daniel 8

Iran to open UN fight to free billions frozen in US

A public hearing in 2006 at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, where Iran will argue its case that billions of dollars in US assets should be unfrozen

The Hague – Iran opens its legal battle before the UN’s top court Monday to unfreeze billions of dollars in US assets, which Washington says must go to victims of terrorist attacks blamed on Tehran.

The case before the International Court of Justice comes as hopes fade of reviving a landmark deal — which former US president Donald Trump withdrew from in 2018 — that sought to tame Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Tehran took Washington to the Hague-based ICJ in 2016 after the US Supreme Court ordered some $2 billion in Iranian assets to be frozen, ordering the cash to go to survivors and relatives of attacks blamed on the Islamic republic.

These included the 1983 bombing of a US Marine barracks in Beirut which killed 299 people including 241 US soldiers, and the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia which left 19 dead.

Iran, however, said the freezing of the funds breached the 1955 Treaty of Amity with the United States, an agreement signed before Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution severed relations between the countries.

Tehran argued the United States had illegally seized Iranian financial assets and those of Iranian companies — and with Iran’s clerical regime facing economic difficulties after sanctions and runaway consumer prices, resolving the case is crucial.

In turn Washington had unsuccessfully tried to disqualify the lawsuit by arguing that Iran’s “unclean hands” — a reference to Tehran’s suspected backing of terrorist groups — should disqualify its lawsuit to recover the $2 billion of assets. 

The US announced in October 2018 that it was pulling out of the Treaty of Amity after the ICJ in a separate case ordered Washington to lift nuclear-related sanctions on humanitarian goods for Iran.

The ICJ is the top court of the United Nations and was set up after World War II to resolve disputes between member states. Its rulings are binding and cannot be appealed, but it has no means of enforcing them.

Monday’s hearing, to which US representatives are set to reply on Wednesday, comes as hopes fade to revive a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and the West which gives Iran sanctions relief in return for restricting its nuclear programme.

Former US President Donald Trump pulled out of what he called the “terrible” international nuclear agreement in 2018 and began reimposing sanctions, prompting Tehran to roll back its commitments made under the pact, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA.

Talks have been ongoing in Vienna since April last year, aimed at restoring the agreement by lifting sanctions on Tehran once again and pushing Iran to fully honour its obligations.

But European powers nine days ago raised “serious doubts” over Iran’s sincerity in seeking a nuclear agreement, adding that Tehran continued “to escalate its nuclear programme way beyond any plausible civilian justification.”

The statement by France, Germany and Britain came a day after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken assessed that Iran’s latest reply on the nuclear deal is a step “backwards”.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell — who had been coordinating talks over the past year and a half — told AFP last week that negotiations were in “stalemate.”

The disputes with Iran include Tehran’s insistence that the UN nuclear watchdog close a probe into three undeclared sites suspected of previous nuclear work.

The “Leader” of the Iranian Horn is About to Die

The Supreme Leader is still alive. But when he does eventually die, how will succession play out?

By Barbara Slavin

In the past week, rumors proliferated that Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had died.

On September 17, however, Khamenei, eighty-three, re-emerged briefly to address a group of students, putting the rumors to rest following a two-week period in which he had not been seen in public and had canceled several scheduled appearances.

The reports about his poor health and possible demise aroused curiosity about who would succeed Khamenei and how the process might unfold.

In Iran, there are legal procedures and then there is realpolitik.

According to the constitution, the Assembly of Experts—a group of eighty-eight senior clerics vetted by another clerical body and then approved in popular elections—picks a new Supreme Leader when the incumbent dies or is otherwise incapacitated. In reality, a decision so important to the continued existence of the Islamic Republic and its elite is determined in advance and in secret.

The post of Supreme Leader is unique in the Muslim world, where secular figures are generally in charge and there is a separation between mosque and state. The position was created by and for the leader of the 1979 Islamic revolution—Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini—and grants massive powers to its occupant. The system, conceived by Khomeini while in exile in the 1960s and 1970s, is known as Velayat-e Faqih or rule by the jurisprudent. The leader is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, appoints the heads of all military branches and the head of the judiciary, and has the final say on all important policies. The Supreme Leader also appoints half the members of the Guardian Council, a twelve-man body that controls Iranian politics by vetting candidates for elected office, including the Assembly of Experts, presidency, and parliament.

In its forty-three-year history, the Islamic Republic has only had one prior transition for Supreme Leader, which occurred after Khomeini’s death in 1989. Khomeini had appointed a successor, Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, a respected religious authority and supporter of the revolution. But Khomeini changed his mind at the last minute after Montazeri harshly criticized the leader for authorizing the summary execution of 4,500 to five thousand political prisoners in 1988 at the end of the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War. Montazeri was dismissed and later put under house arrest. No new successor was named.

When Khomeini died, the Assembly of Experts was nominally tasked with choosing a successor, rather like the choice of a new pope by the Roman Catholic College of Cardinals. But Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the powerful speaker of the parliament at the time and a close associate of Khomeini for decades, engineered the ascension of the then president of Iran, Ali Khamenei, behind the scenes. The constitution was amended to allow for a Supreme Leader with less than stellar religious credentials (Khamenei was only a Hojatolislam or midranking cleric at the time), the post of prime minister was eliminated, and the presidency—then a weaker position—was given executive authority. The Assembly of Experts approved Khamenei, who resigned the presidency. Rafsanjani then ran successfully for president twice.

Initially the more dominant figure, Rafsanjani lost power over time, as Khamenei—elevated to “ayatollah” status after his selection—grew comfortable in his new role. Khamenei cultivated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in particular, compensating for his lack of clerical knowledge and popular appeal. The IRGC has since become such a major force in Iran—in the economy as well as in the security establishment—that it likely has an even bigger say in who becomes Supreme Leader than the Assembly of Experts or other elite groups.

For years now, there have been rumors that a short list of names was being considered by a small committee within the Assembly of Experts. The Atlantic Council wrote about the contenders in 2019 in an issue brief—“After Sistani and Khamenei: looming successions will shape the Middle East”—that also looked at possible successors to Ayatollah Ali Sistani in Iraq. Of the six men listed at the time as possible successors to Khamenei, one has died—former minister of intelligence Mohammad Reyshahri—and three—Hassan Rouhani, a former president, Hassan Khomeini, a grandson of the first Supreme Leader, and Sadegh Larijani, a former head of the judiciary—have been sidelined for various political reasons. That has left only two individuals: the current president of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, and Khamenei’s second son, Mojtaba.

Raisi, who was elected in June 2021 by the lowest percentage of supporters in the history of the Islamic Republic, has struggled to achieve popularity. Raisi is burdened by his background as one of the prosecutors who signed off on the summary executions of the 1980s and was also brutal as the appointed chief of the judiciary before he became president. At this time of writing, Iran has failed to return to compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal, and its economy remains hobbled by sanctions as well as endemic corruption and mismanagement. The Raisi administration has also been extremely repressive, crushing demonstrations, arresting opponents ranging from filmmakers to bus drivers, and intensifying harassment of women who “violate” hijab. On September 16, a young woman, Mahsa Amini, was killed by the so-called morality police who arrested her, setting off new nationwide protests and international outrage.

The other candidate for Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, also has a bleak human rights background. He rose to prominence in 2009, orchestrating the election fraud that gave then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a second term and managing the repression of the post-election protests known as the Green Movement. Mojtaba is extremely close to the leaders of the IRGC and also intimately knows the financial networks under the control of the Supreme Leader. This has made some believe that Mojtaba has long been tapped to succeed his father, however awkward that would look in a country that experienced a bloody revolution to overturn two millennia of monarchical rule. It is telling that, just in recent weeks, Mojtaba—not a noted religious scholar like his father—has been referred to as an ayatollah.

Whoever succeeds Khamenei, that person will have been thoroughly vetted for loyalty to the Islamic Republic and its practices. But a change at the top will still open the prospect for a different approach over time—if only because Iran’s region and the world at large are not static. The Iranian people have also evolved considerably since the 1979 revolution and will put pressure on any new leader to somehow accommodate those changes.

Barbara Slavin is the Director of the Future of Iran Initiative at the Atlantic Council. Follow her on Twitter: @BarbaraSlavin1. 

Israel busts Hamas cell in West Bank planning attacks outside the Temple Walls: Revelation 11

Shin BetAlleged members of a Hamas cell arrested by Israeli security forces in the West Bank in September 2022.

Israel busts Hamas cell in West Bank planning attacks

i24NEWSSeptember 19, 2022 at 08:12 AMlatest revision September 19, 2022 at 08:49 AM

‘These arrests reveal the continuous efforts of Hamas… to destabilize the West Bank’

Israeli forces dismantled an alleged terrorist cell planning to carry out bombings and shootings in the West Bank, and arrested seven of its members earlier this month, Israel’s Shin Bet domestic security service said Monday.

Those arrested were part of a cell connected to Gaza’s ruling faction Hamas, and took instructions from Yahya Amer Muhammad Abu Saifan, a Hamas member in the Gaza Strip who recruits Palestinians in the West Bank, according to the Shin Bet.

The Shin Bet said the seven members, who were all from the Nablus area and Hebron – respectively north and south of Jerusalem – practiced shooting and conducted tests with explosive devices. Several guns and explosive materials were seized following their arrests.

Abu Saifan provided the cell with instructions and funding to purchase materials to build bombs, the Shin Bet added.

The cell members – Masab Himouni, Ahmed Abu Daoud, Izz a-Din a-Zin, Imad Abu Khalaf, and Abdullah Quasma from Hebron, and Mamoun Hanani and Kamaal Hanani, from the Beit Furik village near Nablus – were all charged with serious security offenses.

“These arrests and investigations reveal, once again, the continuous efforts of Hamas operatives from the Gaza Strip and abroad, whose goal is to destabilize the [West Bank] and raise the level of violence on the ground, while recruiting terrorist operatives in the [West Bank] in order to advance attacks,” the Shin Bet said in a statement.

The arrests came as Israeli security forces are on high alert amid a resurgence of tensions in the West Bank.