Counter Terror Operation
Counter Terror OperationFlash 90

IDF forces arrested 12 Arabs in Judea and Samaria overnight Monday on suspicion of terror activities.

According to an IDF spokeswoman, six were detained in al-Mughayyir village northeast Ramallah, while three were arrested in villages southwest of Ramallah, an Israeli army spokeswoman said. Three others were detained near Hebron.

All detainees were taken for security questioning,  the IDF spokeswoman said.

According to the IDF one of men detained in al-Mughayyir had a rifle and ammunition, but did not specify what kind of rifle it was.

According to the PA affiliated Maan News Agency said four of the men detained in Ramallah were students at Birzeit University. They are Bayan Nasan, Walid Abu Alia, Musa Muhammad, and Khaled Muhammad.

On Monday, students from Birzet University played a key role in organizing a protest that turned into a violent riot outside the Ofer military base where a hearing on the detention of Islamic Jihad leader Khader Adnan was being held.

Islamic Jihad is also heavily involved in the staging of rocket and mortar attacks on Israel's southern communities from Gaza.

Observers say security forces may be looking for the provocateurs behind Monday's violent riot in which 23 protesters and one member of Israel's border police was injured.

The arrests are a part of an ongoing full court press by the IDF aimed at rooting out the terror infrastructure in Judea and Samaria.

In September 2011, an ongoing investigation by IDF, GSS, and Israel Police investigators uncovered network of Hamas terror cells in the region.

All of the cells - including the one responsible for the April 2011 Jerusalem bus stop bombing that killed a British tourism and wounded scores more - were found to be in various stages of planning terror attacks. One of the cells was weeks away from carrying out a suicide bombing in Jerusalem.

Those arrests came just weeks after Islamic Jihad and their terror confederates in Gaza staged a deadly cross-border terror attack on an Israeli bus near Eilat from Sinai that killed eight Israelis.

In January, GSS and Israel Police investigators broke up an Islamic Jihad terror cell in Tulkarem in northern Samaria, which was training an Israeli Arab to carry out a shooting attack on Jewish Israelis with an automatic rifle.

Israel also arrested five senior Hamas-affiliated officials from the Palestinian Legislative Council, in January. Security sources say intelligence data connected them to terrorists in Judea and Samaria.

Intelligence data obtained during their arrests revealed close associations with three Israeli Arab lawmakers, MKs Haneen Zoabi, Massoud Ghanaian and Ibrahim Sarsur.

They note the uptick in terrorism related activity in Judea and Samaria coincides with the Palestinian Authority's unilateral bid for statehood at the United Nations and attempts to reconcile with Hamas.