Jerusalem police announced on Tuesday that over they past month they uncovered a massive weapons cache hidden inside a vegetable shop in east Jerusalem, with dozens of weapons, ammunition, pipe bombs, Hamas literature, and a quarter of a million shekels.

Seized Weapons cache – Photo: Courtesy Jerusalem Police

Police arrested a number of Israeli Arabs and illegal infiltrators from the West Bank over the past month, though the investigation is still ongoing so details are under a media gag order.

Two brothers, the central suspects, were indicted over the weekend in the Jerusalem Magistrate Court and will be in detention until the end of proceedings.

National police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said police and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Service) are still investigating whether the weapons cache was designated for carrying out terror attacks or for criminal activity not connected to nationalistic motives.

On August 8th Israel police raided a vegetable market on Sultan Suleiman Street, next to Damascus Gate in the economic heart of east Jerusalem, after receiving intelligence that the building was housing a large amount of weapons.

Police discovered multiple explosives, hand grenades, different kinds of pistols, and bullets. The room was hidden behind a vegetable market and had photos of different martyrs on the walls as well as Hamas flags, head gear to hide their faces, stolen berets from the border police, and NIS 250,000.

Police also discovered a weapons silencer, something that illustrates the fact that the people involved in obtaining the weapons are very advanced and organized, Rosenfeld said.

“This is a quality stash of different types of weapons,” said Rosenfeld. “Silencers, you don’t find every day. They were much more focused and on a higher level. The fact that it was hidden inside a grocery store, that it was clearly being hidden, that’s also very suspicious.”