The daring undercover operation ended with the terrorists’ deaths after a fierce gun battle. Palestinian Authority security personnel and officers, including senior commanders, offered condolences to their families.
By Beth Stern, United with Israel
The complicated Thursday morning operation to catch the terrorists who murdered Lucy, Maia and Rina Dee on Passover entailed using inventive methods that included undercover agents dressed as women, drones that dropped explosives, and a dog that was unfortunately killed in action.
After receiving exact intelligence information that indicated the exact location of Hamas operatives Hassan Katan and Maad Mitzri deep in Shechem (Nablus), the IDF, Shabak and police moved in.
A video uploaded to social media showed a small force of seven people dressed in civilian clothes walking purposefully down the small streets of the Palestinian-controlled city’s Kasbah (marketplace). Some of them were outfitted as women, wearing long, flowing robes and the head-covering known as a hijab. Another group of four men is also seen striding down a narrow alleyway, two of them leading the way dressed as garbagemen and carrying a big trashcan between them and at one point waving a yellow cloth to seemingly indicate a certain doorway to the others.
מרתק.. תיעוד מכניסת כוח מסתערבים הבוקר לפעילות ב-שכם pic.twitter.com/7uF7OI6LEu
— בז news (@1717Bazz) May 4, 2023
Some 200 heavily armed troops were involved in all in the operation, with some setting up a protective perimeter and others participating in the actual raid on the hideout. One of the participants was a dog named Django, who had gone on hundreds of counter-terror operations. A heavy firefight broke out as Palestinian terrorists tried to help their targeted comrades, and Django was killed, according to Israeli police, while protecting his unit from the enemy’s guns.
Some eight Palestinian gunmen were reportedly wounded in the clash that ended with the death of the murderers and Ibrahim Hura, who owned the apartment Mitzri and Katan had been using ever since they fled the scene of their crime in the Jordan Valley.
The two terrorists attacked Lucy Dee and her two daughters, who were on their way to a family outing, in a drive-by shooting. After causing a car crash, they got out of their vehicle, walked up to the three women inside and shot at them again. Rina (16) and Maia (20) died on the spot, while their mother died in hospital two days later.
The air force also took part in the raid, with UAVs and drones circling in the sky overhead. According to various reports, either a kamikaze drone was sent to explode in the terrorists’ apartment, or one was used to drop a shock grenade inside.
Israeli officials from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the mayor of Efrat, where the Dee family lives, praised the daring operation and said it proved the IDF could reach terrorists wherever they may hide. The Shin Bet, or Shabak (Israel Security Agency) had identified the perpetrators almost immediately, found their hiding place and kept them under surveillance until the raid was set up.
The fact that the successful, one-hour long operation took place in daylight rather than in the dead of night, and with no injuries to the IDF soldiers, attests to the prowess of the Israeli forces. The pinpoint results are also impressive in that the only three people killed were the murderers and their chief accomplice.
Palestinian Authority security personnel and officers, including senior commanders, offered condolences to the families of the terrorists who died, blogger Abu Ali Express reported.