Palestinian caught trying to smuggle bombs into Jerusalem

Israeli border police at a busy checkpoint between Palestinian-held areas and Jerusalem on Tuesday detained a Palestinian man found trying to smuggle pipe bombs into the city. The incident took place midday at the busy Kalandiya crossing, which sits near northern Jerusalem's Pisgat Ze'ev settlement neighborhood. The facility is a few kilometers south of Ramallah, where the Palestinian National Authority's headquarters are located. Crossing officials, who had stopped the 20-year-old for a standard inspection, discovered the eight explosives, police said. "The individual looked suspicious, and had a bag with him, as well," Israel Police Spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld told Xinhua. "He was removed to an area for a search." Palestinian and Israeli vehicular and foot traffic in both directions was stopped and long lines quickly developed, as authorities immediately shut down the facility, which serves as a gateway to the city. "The man is being questioned by police and security officials as to his intentions," Rosenfeld said. Israeli sappers were summoned to defuse the bombs, after which the crossing will likely return to service. Several kilometers to the south, an Israeli police raid near Jerusalem's Old City on September 11th yielded a trove of weapons and the arrests of eight Palestinians suspected of making and trading illegal arms. The confiscated weapons included assault rifles, pistols, ammunition, silencers, hand grenades and pipe bombs. Some 250,000 shekels (almost 64,000 U.S. dollars) worth of cash was also found in the raid that was just announced, according to Army radio. Five of the suspects are from Jerusalem and three others are from the Hebron area, said Israel Radio. Two of the Palestinians are residents of eastern Jerusalem's Silwan neighborhood; they used a ground floor shop as a front for their activities and hid weapons in a refrigerator and money in a hidden safe, according to the Ynet news site. The police handed over the suspects to the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) for further questioning in the ongoing investigation.