Bedouin man sentenced to 24.5 years after joining IDF to spy for Gazan terror group

The Beersheba District Court sentences a man from an unidentified Bedouin village in the south to 24.5 years in prison for transferring stolen military equipment to the Mujahideen Brigades, and enlisting in the IDF in 2022 in order to spy for the Gaza-based group.

The Mujahideen Brigades went on to abduct on October 7 Shiri Bibas and her two young sons Ariel and Kfir, who were all then murdered in captivity.

The case of the man, Shahadeh Abu al-Qiaan, has been referred to Interior Minister Yariv Levin to assess whether to revoke his Israeli citizenship, prosecutors say.

Al-Qiaan was arrested by the Shin Bet on May 30, 2022, eight days after he joined the army.

He was was convicted in December of aggravated theft, firearms offenses, membership in a terrorist organization and assisting an enemy during wartime. Al-Qiaan admitted to the charges as part of a plea deal.

According to prosecutors, Al-Qiaan had “decided to act against the state” after his father in mid-2019 received a demolition order for his home in the unrecognized village of Atir.

In September that year, al-Qiaan stole an assault rifle and a bullet magazine from soldiers near the southern West Bank settlement of Yattir while they were sleeping, prosecutors say. He buried the equipment underground near his home, they add.

In 2021, al-Qiaan joined the Mujahideen Brigades after making contact online with an agent of the group who called himself Abu Saliman, the indictment says.

Al-Qiaan reported to the Mujahideen on troop and helicopter movements near his home and also sent the group “information and pictures of IDF bases, train stations, state-owned firms and shopping centers,” according to the indictment.

In March 2022, the indictment says, Abu Saliman asked al-Qiaan for military equipment and al-Qiaan offered to sell what he had stolen more than two years before, as well as five grenades and thousands of bullets that he obtained by unspecified means.

After digging up the materiel, al-Qiaan, with the help of a cousin, in May 2022 transferred it to a hiding spot used by the Mujahideen Brigades in the West Bank, according to prosecutors.

He drafted to the IDF that same month with the aim of “gathering information from within the army about Bedouin soldiers, bases and military locations” for the Mujahideen Brigades, but his plan was thwarted by his arrest, prosecutors say.