Palestinian women suspected of handling Jihad funds arrested

A number of Palestinian woman from the Ramallah and Hebron areas were arrested recently by the Shin Bet security service on suspicion of helping transfer funds from Islamic Jihad's Damascus headquarters to the terror group's activists in the territories.

The central suspect in the affair, Wadha Fakha, 34, from the Jilazoon refugee camp near Ramallah, was arrested in August. Fakha was running an Islamic Jihad office in Ramallah, and according to Shin Bet officials, received money from its headquarters in the Syrian capital.

The money, the Shin Bet said, was then transferred to activists in Islamic Jihad's military wing, who used it to carry out terror attacks.

Fakha was arrested along with four other women from Jilazoon and Na'ama, a village west of Ramallah. They are suspected of passing on the money to two Jihad cells - in Na'ama and Kafr Ayin - that conducted shooting attacks and laid explosive devices in the area.

Two of the women are believed to have received $100 commission for every fund transfer.