Hamas Plot to Control Temple Mount Foiled

[watchman]

Hamas Plot to Control Temple Mount Foiled

http://thetrumpet.com/index.php?page=article&id=3391

A Hamas plot to gain control of the Temple Mount in East Jerusalem was foiled by Shin Bet, Israel’s security agency.

Shin Bet thwarted Hamas’s plans with a year-long sting operation that led to the arrest of 11 Hamas officials, the agency revealed Monday.

The detainees, 10 of whom possess cards identifying themselves as Israeli citizens, will be indicted for membership in a terror group and financing terrorist activity. “Their goal is to gain full control over the Temple Mount,” said a Shin Bet security official.

Officials said the attempted takeover was a “strategic move” to bolster Hamas’s standing with the Palestinians and Muslim world. Hamas’s activities on the Temple Mount included organizing post-fast Ramadan meals to recruit support, and undertaking renovations to give Hamas a foothold in the area.

Just last month, Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in a violent civil war with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah organization claiming dozens of Palestinian lives. Many observers believe that its next move will likely be an attempt to take over the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Thus this ascendant radical organization’s plot to take over the Temple Mount comes as no surprise—and it surely represents only the first of more such attempts in the future. Jerusalem, particularly the Temple Mount, simply represents the choicest prize that Muslims could gain.

Israel has controlled East Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount, since the Six Day War in 1967, but international pressure is mounting for Israel to relinquish control to the Palestinians as a concession for peace. Israel has refused and resisted even more since Hamas gained a bigger political presence in the Palestinian elections last year.

However, biblical prophecy reveals that Jerusalem will be split in half again between Israeli control and Muslim control. This split will likely result in the Temple Mount being transferred to Palestinian control. For more information on this prophecy, read “Jerusalem Is About to Be Cut in Half.” Shin Bet’s efforts in foiling the Hamas plot may, in the end, be for naught.