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Click here to watch: Shin Bet thwarts al-Qaeda attack on Israel’s US embassy, Jerusalem convention center
Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency cracked open an al-Qaeda plot, directed from the Gaza Strip, to carry out mega terror attacks in Israel against both US and Israeli targets, according to information the Shin Bet made available Wednesday. Israel is holding three suspects in the plot, it added, but the key plotter is still at large.
The trio were arrested three weeks ago, shortly before one or more of them were to travel to Syria for final planning of the operations, which were reportedly initiated on the direct orders of al-Qaeda head Ayman al-Zawahiri. 
US Embassy in Tel Aviv
The planned attacks included twin suicide bombings, against the US Embassy in Tel Aviv and the main Israeli convention center in Jerusalem, where President Barack Obama gave the centerpiece speech of his Israel visit last March. Other planned attacks included targeting an Israeli bus and Jewish homes in East Jerusalem.
Iyad Abu-Sara, an Arab resident of East Jerusalem, was to be sent to Syria to gain expertise in the nuts and bolts of terror attacks. He would then facilitate the twin attacks, which were to be carried out by al-Qaeda operatives entering Israel with Russian paperwork, according to the Shin Bet.
Abu-Sara is one of the trio now under arrest. The security organization fingered a Gaza-based al-Qaeda operative, Arib al-Sham, as the point man for the twin attack. The fact that he was allowed to operate freely from Gaza, the Shin Bet said, indicates that “Hamas allows Salafists to carry out terror attacks so long as they are not targeting them.” Al-Sham is still at large. 
According to the Shin Bet, the arrests and the unveiling of the plans prove that Gaza has become a base for al-Qaeda operations, and that Hamas, to a large extent, supports the global jihad operations in Sinai and Syria.
 At present, the spread of those operations into Israel is still considered to be in its infancy, with the extremist Sunni groups primarily focused on jihad within the Arab world. But Yoram Schweitzer and Aviv Oreg, two fellows at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, recently wrote that al-Qaeda head al-Zawahiri’s frequently articulated plans are for extremist Muslims to gather in Syrian territory and, after toppling Assad, to use their perch there as “a training pad for jihad operations against Israel."
Source: Times of Israel
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