The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and other security personnel raided a suspected terrorist hideout in Jericho early Monday morning and engaged in a shootout with members of a Hamas terror cell, killing 5. The goal of the Israeli mission was to deal with the Hamas perpetrators of a planned terrorist attack January 28th in the Judean desert community of Vered Yeriho. Two gunmen wearing vests entered a restaurant, where some 30 customers were dining, in an effort to attack the patrons there, but their weapon jammed and they fled to Jericho. The IDF and the Shin Bet, Israel's security agency, in a joint statement, called the thwarted attack a planned "mass murder spree."