Palestinian terror groups say Gazan collaborators with Israel arrested
Suspects accused of involvement in recent Israeli attempts to assassinate Palestinian operatives in the coastal enclave
Adam Rasgon is a former Palestinian affairs reporter at The Times of Israel
Sources in Palestinian terror groups said that Gazan collaborators with Israel, who were involved in recent Israeli attempts to assassinate Palestinian operatives in the Gaza Strip, have been arrested.
The Lebanese newspaper al-Akhbar quoted sources Wednesday as saying that one collaborator was collared after he unsuccessfully tried to poison a top Gazan military leader on behalf of Israel in June.
The report did not state the name or political affiliation of the military leader.
Al-Akhbar, which is based in Beirut, often produces coverage sympathetic to the Hamas terror group.
The sources alleged that a second collaborator was nabbed after he sent a bomb-laden package to a military operative in Gaza at Israel’s behest. They said that the explosive package was defused and that other collaborators involved in sending it to the military operative were arrested.
Asked about the al-Akhbar story, an Israeli military spokesperson said the army does not comment on foreign reports.
Al-Akhbar also reported that Israel recently tried to kill a Palestinian that it released to Gaza as a part of a prisoner swap with Hamas in 2011, by sending him a explosive package.
The report did not attribute that detail to a source or state whether a collaborator was involved. However, it did claim that security forces in Gaza foiled the plot.
Israel freed more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in 2011 in exchange for captured Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit, who Hamas held in its custody for more than five years.
Security sources claimed to the Lebanese daily that after terror groups recently broke up some networks of collaborators in Gaza, they identified “urgent attempts” by the Shin Bet security service to recruit new ones.
They said the agency tried to enlist Palestinians in Gaza through blackmail and by offering financial rewards.
Hamas-run Interior Ministry spokesman Iyad al-Bozm has stated publicly that security forces in Gaza have arrested dozens of collaborators in the past year.
Also quoted in the report was an unnamed leader in an unidentified Palestinian terror group in Gaza who threatened that military operatives in the coastal enclave could take over Israeli communities adjacent to the Strip.
“In any future war, the enemy must expect groups [of fighters] to enter its areas and take control of those settlements,” the leader said to the Lebanese daily, alluding to the communities near Gaza.
Israel and terror groups in Gaza have fought three wars in the past 12 years.
They also took part in a major escalation this past May, in which the terror groups fired hundreds of rockets at Israel and the IDF carried out a large number of retaliatory airstrikes in Gaza.
