Shin Bet security service busts two Israeli citizens in Hamas spy ring
Rami Amoudi, Rajab Daka allegedly tasked with gathering intel on military installations, helping guide rocket-fire; both are Gazans granted citizenship under family reunification
Judah Ari Gross is The Times of Israel's religions and Diaspora affairs correspondent.
The Shin Bet security service said Monday it foiled a Hamas spy ring operating in central Israel, arresting two Israeli citizens earlier this month who allegedly provided the terror group with details about Israeli security facilities and other intelligence information.
According to the agency, the two men — Rami Amoudi, 30, and Rajab Daka, 34 — were recruited by the Gaza-based terror group in October 2019 and tasked with filming security installations in central Israel, including “military bases, police stations and Iron Dome battery placements.”
The Shin Bet said Daka was also asked to provide the precise locations of where rockets launched from Gaza had landed during the recent bouts of fighting, apparently to help the terror group improve its accuracy.
“Hamas is continuing to cynically exploit the Erez Crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel to promote terror in Israel,” the Shin Bet said, referring to the pedestrian border crossing.
Both Amoudi and Daka are originally from the Gaza Strip, but were able to move to Israel as they have Israeli mothers.
Daka’s mother is an Arab-Israeli from the town of Lod, and Amoudi has a Jewish-Israeli mother, who helped him get the documentation necessary to move to Israel, the Shin Bet said.
A father of five, Daka received an Israeli passport in 2017 and has split his time since then between Israel and Gaza, where his children lived, the Shin Bet said. He is originally from Gaza City.
Amoudi came to live with his mother in Israel in November 2019, according to the security service. He is originally from Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, but now lives in Tel Aviv.
The two men were arrested on January 2 and were charged in a Central District Court on Monday.
The Shin Bet said “it takes a serious view of Israeli citizens who exploit their access to the Gaza Strip to promote terror activities.”
During the investigation the security service also uncovered Hamas members engaged in espionage activities, among them a 32-year-old resident of Beit Lahia in the Gaza Strip, who was Daka’s controller, the organization said.
The Times of Israel Community.