The General Security Service permits the publication that as part of an intelligence investigation, information arrived about the activities of a merchant from the Gaza Strip who received a permit to work in Israel and used him for spying for Hamas. While he was arrested and taken to the interrogation rooms of the Shin Bet, he gave a lot of intelligence information about the terrorist organization of Yahya Sinwar.
The arrest itself was carried out last month (November). Hamas searched for several weeks for Sabar Mahmoud Yosef Abu Thabat, 28 years old, a resident of Deir al-Balah in the Gaza Strip, and then realized that he would probably never return to the Gaza Strip since he is in Shin Bet facilities. Abu Thabat received an entry permit from the State of Israel for commercial purposes, He was arrested at the beginning of this month at the Erez crossing while trying to enter Israel.
The Shin Bet reported that “in the investigation of Abu Thabat by the Shin Bet, it emerged that he was employed by Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip for the purpose of gathering intelligence and carrying out missions in Israel.”
During the period in which he was acting as a Hamas emissary, Abu Thabat held several meetings with his operatives at the Beit Hanun crossing for the purpose of promoting terrorist activity and collecting intelligence information. Among the tasks that Abu Thabat was asked to perform by his operatives in Hamas – revealing the identity of Shin Bet agents and gathering intelligence on sites in Israel.
“As part of his investigation, and against the background of his activity in Hamas and the knowledge he was exposed to, a lot of information was received about the operating methods of Hamas’s intelligence mechanisms, including the identity of operators, locations of tunnels, IDF stockpiles and military locations from which the organization operates,” the Shin Bet said.
It was also reported that “the findings of the investigation taught that Abu Thabat took advantage of his stay in Israel, which was intended to give him the opportunity to work in Israel and provide for his family, for the benefit of transmitting intelligence information to his operatives in the security apparatus of Hamas, and this with full awareness of the implications arising from this.”
With the end of the investigation, his case was transferred to the prosecutor’s office in the Southern District and it is expected that an indictment will be filed against him attributing security offenses to him. According to a Shin Bet source, this investigation is added to the findings of the investigation of Fathi Ziad Zakot, a resident of the Gaza Strip with an entry permit to Israel, whose investigation revealed his involvement in an attempted bomb attack on a bus.
The Shin Bet spokeswoman said, “The General Security Service views with great seriousness any intention of terrorist and espionage activity from the Gaza Strip and will continue to work together with the Israel Police and the IDF in order to locate and thwart in advance any hostile activity on the part of all parties working on behalf of Hamas.”