Israeli authorities said that they had stopped a large-scale shipment of sophisticated weaponry from Iran that was intended to be used by terrorists in the West Bank to strike Israel.
The masterminds of the smuggling operations were identified as Juad Ofri and Munir Mukdach by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency. These individuals had ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Since April 2019, the IRGC has been listed by the US State Department as a terrorist organization.
Reports show they were connected to Unit 4000 of the IRGC Special Operations Division and Unit 18840 of the Quds Force in Syria, under the command of Atzar Bakri of Division 840.
Thirty-one rocket-propelled grenades, anti-tank mines, cluster bombs, and anti-tank shoulder missiles, 50 firearms, 25 grenades, grenade launchers are among the weapons that were confiscated.
By capturing a few Palestinian suspects, it was able to piece together a larger scheme to cause instability across the West Bank and carry out much superior terror strikes against Israel.
Following the Biden administration’s March 13 renewal of a sanctions waiver that granted Iran access to over $10 billion in locked assets, Israel seized the Iranian weaponry.
A bipartisan coalition of US Republican senators and state representatives had already written to Biden urging him not to extend the waiver. While Iran’s government is funding terrorist groups all across the globe, the U.S. government is keeping a financial lifeline open to it by lifting sanctions amid regional terror proxies like Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis in Yemen.
Meanwhile, in the Middle East, there has been a string of missile assaults that have killed three American service personnel and injured over forty.
Biden claims that the exemption is for Iran to purchase electricity. But the waiver frees billions of dollars that Iran now has to spend on terrorism and nuclear power.
