Report: Shin Bet debunks idea that Gazan workers spied en masse for Hamas pre-Oct. 7
After probing 16% of workforce, agency finds there was no concerted effort to provide intel to terror group; for months, some media outlets claimed laborers aided the terrorists
After a monthslong investigation, the Shin Bet security service concluded that there was no broad effort by Palestinians who entered Israel from Gaza for work prior to the October 7 massacre to provide Hamas with intelligence information that would assist with the assault, Hebrew media reported on Wednesday.
The revelation came after media outlets for months repeated the claim, which was also reported by The Washington Post, that some laborers had aided Hamas in its plans for the attack.
According to a Channel 12 report on Wednesday, the Shin Bet has investigated some 3,000 Gazans who had permits to work in Israel to assess if they had provided the terror group with information about the communities it was planning on attacking and has concluded that no such concerted effort was made.
The report noted that the Shin Bet did not completely rule out the possibility that some individual laborers had cooperated with the terror group.
“There’s no concern that the people who were investigated passed information to Hamas as a result of their work in Israel,” Channel 12 quoted the Shin Bet as saying. There was no immediate confirmation of the report from the agency, which rarely responds to inquiries.
On October 7, thousands of terrorists streamed across the border and attacked communities, killing more than 1,200 people and abducting 253 hostages. Most of those slain were civilians slaughtered in their homes and at a music festival amid widespread brutality.
In response, Israel launched a war against Hamas, pledging to eradicate the terror organization that rules Gaza and to return the captives.
According to COGAT, the Defense Ministry body that coordinates activity in Palestinian areas, 18,500 Gazans had permits to work in Israel, meaning that the Shin Bet investigation examined roughly 16 percent of the workforce.
An unknown number of laborers in Israel on October 7 were put into detention centers after their work permits were revoked following Hamas’s brutal incursion. Many were returned to Gaza in November.
Israel had been slowly increasing the number of Gazans with work permits in the months leading up to October 7 as it hoped to provide economic incentives for residents of the Strip to maintain the peace, a strategy that was shattered by the October 7 onslaught. In November, Israel’s security cabinet said in a statement: “There will be no more Palestinian workers from Gaza.”
