Building damaged by rocket shrapnel. Photo: Daniel Hagbi, Sderot Media Center.

Israel’s General Security Service (Shin Bet), with the assistance of the country’s police department, arrested a Gazan terrorist sniper earlier this month who had requested to enter Israel on humanitarian grounds, for medical treatment that would improve his sniping ability.

He was “involved in vast terror activity against Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers,” the IDF said in a statement Thursday morning.

The detainee, Mohammed Saber Abu Amsha, – a member of the Gaza al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades from Beit Hanu – was planning “an elaborate sniping attack against an IDF patrol along the Israel-Gaza security fence in which he would act as the sniper,” the IDF said.

Suffering from “an eye condition which impaired his sniping ability,” he requested to enter Israel by way of a special humanitarian entry permit. “The attack was postponed until his return to Gaza once his eyesight was to be restored,” the IDF said.

“He will be indicted today (Thursday) in the Beer Sheva District Court for three counts: attempted murder, contact with an outside agent, and involvement in a crime (murder).”

In recent years, Abu Amsha had taken part in many acts of terror against Israeli civilians as well as the IDF. In fact, he was the original sniper chosen to carry out the attack against IDF forces that resulted in the death on Tuesday of a 22- year-old Israeli working on the security fence surrounding the Gaza Strip, Israel’s Channel 10 reported.

In a Shin Bet interrogation Abu Amsha revealed that he was being trained to attack IDF forces patrolling the perimeter fence. As part of this ‘assignment’, the terror suspect gathered intelligence information about IDF movements along the border with Gaza, Channel 10 said.

“Israel authorizes the entrance of thousands of Gaza residents monthly for humanitarian and medical purposes. This instance of abuse of a permit for terrorist intentions, is loathsome, and poses a violation that jeopardizes the access for medical aid Israel and Judea and Samaria so many Palestinian enjoy,” said IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Peter Lerner.