Hamas claims it caught mega spy, accuses PA of colluding with Israel

Islamic terror group Hamas announced the arrest of “the most dangerous collaborator” with Israel on Tuesday, as an official accused Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority of colluding with Israel to assassinate Hamas officials during Operation Protective Edge.

An unnamed security source told Hamas website Al-Majd that the agent, detained by the movement as he was attempting to cross from Gaza into Israel, has been active for 15 years. The paper claimed the Israeli Shin Bet security service considered the agent one of its most senior handlers.

“The collaborator has been deeply involved in the entrapment of new collaborators numerous times, providing the enemy with names of people who can be blackmailed, or offered [financial] and medical assistance,” the source said.

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The man also functioned as a “bank,” distributing money in secret to other collaborators. During the last two wars in Gaza, he tried to reach Hamas officials — presumably in order to expose them to Israeli airstrikes — and attempted also to reveal rocket launchers, the site claimed.

Hamas has long sought to end Palestinian collaboration with Israel, at times offering amnesty to repentant spies and at times killing suspected Israeli agents in public summary executions.

Hamas spokesman Salah Bardawil (YouTube screenshot)

Meanwhile, Hamas official Salah Bardawil said his movement holds “damning evidence” of the involvement of the PA’s General Intelligence in Israeli targeted killings during last summer’s Operation Protective Edge.

“We have verified information … that documents, photos and coordinates were handed over to the Zionist enemy by the General Intelligence and used for [Israel’s] target bank,” Bardawil charged. “Dozens of targets were bombarded, killing many Palestinians from Hamas and Fatah, since the airplane cannot distinguish between a child and his brother.”

Bardawil called on Azzam Al-Ahmad, who holds the reconciliation portfolio with Hamas on behalf of Abbas, to come to Gaza and observe the evidence for himself.