The Israel Police said on Sunday that officers arrested a Palestinian man who was filmed last month spiriting a young girl over the West Bank security barrier using a rope.

The suspect, a 29-year-old from the West Bank town of A-Ram, was caught on video lifting the girl to the wall’s edge, then lowering her down on the other side with a rope.

He was arrested on suspicion of “smuggling infiltrators over the separation fence and abusing a helpless person,” police said.

The suspect was tracked down by Border Police forces with surveillance drones, police said, and was arrested at a shop in A-Ram, just north of Jerusalem.

He was undergoing interrogation at the Border Police headquarters in Jerusalem, police said.

Israel has heavily restricted the entry of West Bank Palestinians into the country since the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led invasion and massacre in southern Israel.

Before October 7, Israel issued about 140,000 permits for Palestinians – both for work inside the Green Line and in Israeli settlements or industrial zones in the West Bank.

Today, 18,000 permits are granted for work in the West Bank, and only 8,600 permits remain valid for work inside Israel, according to the Defense Ministry unit that coordinates with Palestinians........

© The Times of Israel