Israeli authorities seize Chinese shipment of balloons colored like PA flag, ordered by Hevron Arab for use as incendiary weapons in Gaza.

Millions of balloons from China have been prevented from being smuggled into Gaza. Following early intelligence information received by the Tax Authority, containers were found in the port of Ashdod where the balloons, in the colors of the Palestinian Authority, were stored.

The balloons were supposed to arrive in Gaza and serve as incendiary balloons to be launched into Israeli territory.

The Ashkelon Magistrates' Court today accepted the request of the YASAM unit of the Customs House of Ashdod and ordered the release under restrictive conditions of David Cohen (50), owner of DC Logistics Ltd. , suspected of importing hundreds of thousands of balloons, in the colors of the Palestinian Authority, using his Israeli citizenship to evade security checks.

According to the detention request, the customs unit of Ashdod Customs House accumulated intelligence information indicating that DC Logistics Ltd., owned by the suspect, intends to import a huge quantity of balloons and transfer them immediately to a resident of Hevron who intended to transfer them gradually to Gaza.

At the end of the operation, a container was found that was imported by the company owned by the suspect, and it was found that on the cardboard boxes in which the balloons were stored, the name Tahsin Maged Ahmed Dofash, the Arab buyer from Hevron, was written.

In strict contradiction to customs procedures, the suspect did not specify an autonomy code in the import declaration and did not notify the customs of the final destination of the balloon shipment, in order to avoid security checks, as claimed in the request for detention, with the aim of making a monetary profit.

The suspect did not order the goods, did not determine the nature and type of the goods, did not pay their cost, and the whole purpose of his activity was to disguise the final destination of the goods. The suspect linked himself to most of the offenses attributed to him.

In the afternoon, six fires broke out in the Eshkol Regional Council area near the Gaza Strip, as a result of incendiary balloons launched from Gaza into Israel.

The firefighting forces acted to extinguish the fires.