The Israeli Shin Bet security service says it has stopped an al Qaeda cell operating in the Gaza Strip from carrying out alleged plans to attack several targets including the US Embassy in Israel.  Palestinians are rejecting Israel’s claims.

The Prime Minister’s spokesman Ofir Gendelman tweeted news of the arrests. Shin Bet said the two men from East Jerusalem were allegedly recruited over Facebook by another al Qaeda agent in the Gaza Strip;  they allegedly planned to provide bomb vests to foreign militants posing as Russian tourists for attacks on an Israeli convention centre in Jerusalem and the US Embassy in Tel Aviv;  and allegedly planned to kidnap a soldier and attack an Israeli bus in the occupied West Bank.

Security experts have in the past said al Qaeda has had little appeal among Palestinians, who are more involved in their nationalist struggle with Israel than any broader regional “jihad”. 

Hamas, which runs Gaza, belittled Israel’s report.  Spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the Shin Bet statement was “silly fabrications,” and added, “Facebook is not a Hamas network.”  He insists Israel was seeking a pretext for earlier attacks in Gaza, one of which involved an air strike which killed two militants blamed for a cross-border rocket salvo last week.

The US is reacting cautiously.

“I don't have reason to believe it's not true,” said State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf.  “I just don't have independent verification.”