Israeli security services have announced that they have foiled a plot to assassinate far-right national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir, AFP reports.
Eleven people, including seven Palestinian Israeli citizens, were arrested in the joint operation with police and the army, the internal security service Shin Bet said.
"The Shin Bet dismantled a terror cell that was preparing attacks in Israel, in particular against Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir," the agency said in a statement, nearly six months after Israel's war against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip began.
They said the suspects had planned to kill Ben-Gvir using a rocket-propelled grenade.
"The cell was also planning attacks on military bases, Ben Gurion Airport and government offices in Jerusalem," the statement added.
Ten of the suspects were arraigned in court in Beersheva in the south, the security service said.
Ben-Gvir, who heads the Jewish Power party, is known for his inflammatory rhetoric against Palestinians.
In February, he called for tighter controls on Palestinians in the West Bank - where he is a settler - saying they "should not be allowed" into Jerusalem to pray during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
Police and Shin Bet also said they had foiled two planned attacks in annexed East Jerusalem carried out by "supporters of the Islamic State" (ISIS).
Attacks linked to the ISIS jihadist group would be rare in the country.
Earlier in the war with Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu likened Hamas to jihadists, and in November the army said it killed Nabil Halbiya, an "ISIS fighter, during a shootout in the occupied West Bank.
Police said one of the alleged attacks in Jerusalem was to be against a police station and the other near a football stadium.
Their statement added that three people had been arrested.
One of the suspects had "facilitated the training" of the other two, who he "induced to undergo terrorist indoctrination abroad," it said.
The three will face trial, the release said.
The Hamas attack on October 7 sparked the war and led to the deaths of 1,170 Israelis and foreigners in southern Israel, most of them civilians, according to Israeli figures.
Vowing to annihilate Hamas, Israel has been conducting a relentless air and ground offensive that has resulted in at least 33,037 deaths in the Gaza Strip, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Health Ministry. / BGNES
