A teacher from northern Israel was arrested after providing Hamas with the location of a defense industry plant in the north to help Hamas fire rockets toward the plant, the Shin Bet and police said on Sunday.
The suspect was identified as Rami Habibullah, a resident of Ein Mahil, a town near Nazareth. The Shin Bet and police found that, in light of the conflict in Gaza, Habibullah decided to contact Hamas operatives abroad and offer to help promote terrorist activities in Israel.
Habibullah provided a Hamas operative with a photo of a defense industry plant near his home and the exact location of the plant, intending to have Hamas fire rockets toward the site. He also collected funds for the terrorist group and provided information on several sensitive locations.
The northern resident also worked to recruit other Israeli Arabs to help in promoting terrorist activity within Israel, including Khaled Saleh, a 35-year-old resident of Ein Mahil. Saleh was also arrested and during questioning it emerged that Saleh had agreed to carry out terrorist activities together with Habibullah and had even offered to provide weapons for such operations.
Another suspect connected to the case is being held in administrative detention.
Israel Police arrest a teacher from northern Israel accused of working with Hamas to promote terrorist operations. February 2023 (Credit: Israel Police)
On Sunday, the Northern District Attorney’s office filed an indictment against Habibullah and Saleh to the District Court in Nazareth. Habibullah has been charged with a series of national security crimes, including making contact with a foreign agent, making illegal purchases for the purpose of terrorism, and conspiracy to commit an act of terrorism, among other crimes. Saleh is charged with conspiracy to commit an act of terrorism.
“This is a serious action by Israeli citizens who hatched a malicious plan with Hamas operatives while the State of Israel is in the midst of fighting against that terrorist organization. This activity was thwarted in the initial stages even before the squad members had time to execute the plan for terrorist activity inside Israel,” said the Shin Bet and Israel Police.
“The Shin Bet and Israel Police take very seriously any involvement of Israeli citizens in activities that endanger the security of the state and will continue to act in accordance with the authority given to them by law and will use all the means at their disposal to thwart threats in a targeted manner in the face of threats within Israeli society, without this harming the normative majority in society,” continued the joint statement.
The Gidonim (33) unit in the Lahav 433 national crime unit took part in the arrest of the suspects, releasing footage of the arrests on Sunday.
Series of Israeli citizens arrested in recent years for working with Hamas
Habibullah and Saleh are the latest in a series of Israeli citizens arrested for working with Hamas in the past two years.
On Friday, a Bedouin Israeli from El-A’sam, located southeast of Beersheba, was indicted on charges that he crossed into Gaza and joined Hamas in 2016, providing the terrorist organization with information about the locations of IDF bases and training with the Nukhba forces, one of the main Hamas forces that conducted the October 7 massacre.
The Bedouin young man, Juma’a Abu Ganima, was arrested in December while he was trying to infiltrate back from Gaza into Israel.
Last May, an Israeli Arab from Umm el-Fahm was arrested by the Shin Bet and Israel Police after he was recruited by Hamas to conduct a bombing attack on a bus in the Hadera area.
The suspect, identified as Muhammad Nadir Mahajna, began to draw close to the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood and decided to carry out a terrorist attack.
Mahajna collected information about potential targets for the planned bombing attack, with a focus on defense facilities and crowded areas, and sent the information he collected to Hamas.
The Gidonim (33) unit also took part in Mahajna’s arrest.
In January 2023, two Israeli citizens from Mu’awiya in northern Israel were arrested after being recruited by Hamas to carry out bombing attacks in the Jewish state.
In October 2022, three Israeli citizens from northern Israel were indicted for helping build a cyber threat against communications infrastructure used by the IDF and for providing sensitive information to the Hamas terrorist movement in Turkey.
The main suspect in the case, identified as R.A., worked as a software engineer at Cellcom, which provides services to the IDF and police. The suspect had broad access privileges to the company’s computer and information systems.
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