One Bedouin and three Arabs were sentenced to prison terms Wednesday by the Haifa District Court for plotting to carry out terrorist attacks.
The Bedouin defendant is the son of an IDF soldier who is a member of an elite IDF Bedouin tracker squad. The soldier was wounded in the First Lebanon War.
The four, all of whom were residents of northern Israel, were caught with explosives and pistols. One had made initial contact with other terrorist elements through the Internet.
All were sentenced to prison terms ranging from eight to 11 years.
According to court papers, the terrorists had also formulated a plan to abduct Israeli soldiers in revenge for Operation Cast Lead.
Israel's three-week counter terrorist war, conducted in the winter of 2008-2009 against the Hamas terrorist rulers of Gaza, has since vastly reduced the number of rocket and mortar attacks fired at Jewish civilians from the region.