Shin Bet: Dozens of terror attacks led by Turkey-based Hamas operatives foiled over past year

The Shin Bet security agency says it foiled dozens of planned terror attacks in the West Bank directed by Hamas operatives in Turkey in the past year.

In a statement, the Shin Bet names several Turkey-based operatives in Hamas’s so-called West Bank Headquarters, a unit in the terror group responsible for advancing attacks against Israel from or in the West Bank.

“Over the years, and with increased intensity over the past year, operatives in the West Bank Headquarters have been directing and advancing extensive military activity into Judea and Samaria [West Bank] and Israel from Turkish soil, including recruiting operatives to carry out attacks and transferring weapons and funds into the area to advance military activity,” the agency says.

According to the Shin Bet, Istanbul-based senior Hamas official Zaher Jabarin is the head of Hamas’s West Bank activity, and Ayman Abu Khalil heads the military wing in the territory.

The Shin Bet names several more operatives who it says reside in Turkey and operate under Hamas’s West Bank Headquarters.

They include: Ayman Sharawna, who worked to recruit operatives; Muhammad Mallah, who also spends part of his time in Qatar, and worked to transfer funds for terror activity; Majed Jaaba, who assisted in providing the weapon used in a November 2023 shooting attack at a Jerusalem-area checkpoint; Walid Abu Nassar, who financed a Hamas network in Bethlehem; and Salam Yaish, who recruited operatives to carry out attacks.

The Shin Bet says the Hamas operatives “carry out their activities unhindered from Turkish territory,” and exploit “infrastructure in the country to transfer instructions and funds” to terrorists in the West Bank.