As for confiscating cups of noodles, that doesn't surprise me at all; they're a notorious way of hiding C4 (plastic) explosive in a seemingly innocent looking package.
This was upon arrival, so the C4 argument doesn't matter. Someone just wanted a free meal.
At the risk of further derailing this conversion, your argument assumes that militants only target the method of transportation and not some building or person at the destination. The specific circumstance that you witnessed might be as you described it, merely someone looking for a free meal.
Many years ago during one trip into the West Bank with my kids, crossing in from Jordan, we were detained by Israeli customs because we had packed my son's intubator into his bag. It's an implement for administering albuterol treatments incase of an asthma attack. We had reached our destination, but there was still a risk the machine would be confiscated by customs. Luckily one of the customs officials recognized it for what it was, and even better we didn't need it on that trip.