Hamas sleeper cells in Judea and Samaria have been ordered to start preparing to carry out suicide bombings in Israel, a Hamas official was quoted as saying in Lebanon’s Al-Akhbar newspaper on Thursday.

In what is believed to be an enactment of a recent Hamas operational decision to return to more actively violent resistance against Israel, Hamas operatives have been ordered to attack military and civilian Israeli targets on both sides of the Green Line.

The Hamas official was quoted as saying, “The operations will be carried out soon, and include a list of targets that includes political and security figures inside Israel.” His statement indicated that the attacks would focus on army and police officials.

The report comes after a statement by a Palestinian security official in early December which said that Ramallah, where the Palestinian Authority’s government is located, was aware of dozens of former Palestinian security prisoners, released from Israeli jails as part of the Gilad Shalit exchange deal in 2011, who are again involved in terrorist activity against Israel.

Interrogations of Hamas operatives detained by PA security forces revealed that Hamas leaders in Gaza and abroad have sent orders to local “commanders” telling them to escalate their terror activities, including encouraging protests, continuing stabbing attacks, and deadly assaults on Israeli civilians.

A Hamas cell located in Abu Dis, an Arab neighborhood in East Jerusalem, was recently caught in the final stages of planning a terrorist attack in Israel. The attack was meant to target “senior Israeli security and political officials.”

Hamas told the paper that the terror cell was apprehended when one of its members reached out to a contact in the PA’s security forces to ask for help in obtaining fake identification papers which would allow the terrorists to cross into Israel. The PA security official turned them in.

While 27 Israelis have been killed and hundreds more wounded in the current wave of Palestinian terror sweeping through Israel, there have been no suicide bombing attacks as of yet. The prospect is a terrifying one for Israelis, who lived through a series of suicide attacks during the Second Intifada which claimed the lives of hundreds.