<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Security forces operating in Jenin have captured one of the terrorists responsible for the December, 2005 bombing of a mall in Netanya.

 

The driver, 22-year-old Adham Mahmad Yunis, drove the suicide bombers to the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Sharon shopping mall, located on one of the coastal city’s main streets, where they blew themselves up at the entrance to the building.

 

Six people were murdered in the attack, including the security guard, who stopped the bomber from entering the mall. Scores of others were wounded in the attack, several critically.

 

Yunis was a resident of the Samaria city of Tulkarem, which is controlled by the Palestinian Authority and located a few kilometers east of Netanya.

 

The area, which is technically under Israeli control,had been handed over to the PA several months earlier, on the condition its armed forces would fight terrorism and disarm terror groups operating from the area.

 

The bombers and their driver were members of the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization, whose leaders had met with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in Syria just a few days prior to the attack.

 

Yunis was also involved in sending a terrorist to carry out an attack in the Tel Aviv suburb of Bat Yam in February 2005. That attack failed.

 

The December 2005 was the second such attack on the Sharon mall. In the previous attack, the bomber was also stopped by security guards before entering the building. Five people were murdered and dozens of others wounded in that attack as well.