Palestinian terror group Lion’s Den claims it executed an Israeli spy in Nablus
Unverified video of ostensible confession asserts Shin Bet blackmailed operative with gay sex video, paid him in cigarettes to provide information on terror suspects
The Palestinian terror group Lions’ Den announced Sunday the extrajudicial killing of a “traitor” in the West Bank who had allegedly collaborated with Israel.
The group, based in the northern city of Nablus, said the “traitor” had been “liquidated,” in a Telegram post that gave no further details of their identity or activities.
The Independent Commission for Human Rights, a Palestinian public body, also said a man who had been “accused of spying for the Israeli occupation” had been killed on Saturday evening.
A security source in Nablus, who requested anonymity due to sensitivities surrounding the case, told AFP that the man was shot dead in the city’s Old City.
The source identified the person killed as the same man who appeared in a video circulating on social media, which AFP was not able to verify, confessing to spying on the terrorist group for Israel.
In the video circulating, the man — named as 23-year-old Zoheir Khalil Ghalith — can be heard claiming that the Shin Bet had a video of him engaged in sexual relations with another man, which they used to blackmail him into cooperating with them.
“The officer rewarded me with a pack of cigarettes”
The Palestinian spy executed today by the Lion’s Den commenting on one of his missions, involving the assassination of 3 Palestinians during daylight feb 2022. pic.twitter.com/UMS2lkJYSo
— Younis | يونس (@ytirawi) April 8, 2023
He also says in the video that he provided information that led to a number of Palestinian terror operatives being killed in IDF raids, including several gunmen in February and Aboud Sobah and Muhammad al-Azizi last summer.
In exchange for some of his efforts, he received cartons of cigarettes from an Israeli security official whom he would meet in the West Bank town of Huwara, he claimed.
The Lions’ Den group said it would “explain to the public” the execution “after completing some security measures.”
“We direct our message to every traitor who sells his religion, his conscience, his honor and his nation,” added the group, which emerged last year.
The Commission said people should not “take the law into their own hands” and warned that extrajudicial killings risk sparking “chaos.” It called treason a “heinous crime” that should be punished through the courts.
Israeli security forces have killed multiple Lions’ Den terrorists in recent months in raids centered on Nablus aimed at thwarting attacks or locating suspects.
The Palestinian group has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks targeting Israelis in the West Bank, including the killing of a soldier in October.
