Comment on Gaza widow offers insight into world of spies

Gaza widow offers insight into world of spies

The widow's account to The Associated Press gave a rare look into the secret espionage side of the war between Israel and the Hamas militant group. According to her, Israeli security agents took advantage of her late husband's financial troubles a decade ago, luring him into collaborating by offering him a permit to work in Israel. Israel has historically relied on collaborators against Palestinian militants and activists, recruiting them with methods ranging from entrapment and blackmail to cash and perks. Hamas, in turn, has done whatever it can to stop collaborators — particularly by killing them in public as a deterrent to others — since it holds them responsible for helping Israel assassinate dozens of its top figures. During the war, militants gunned down 22 suspected spies, almost all of them on a single day after three senior Hamas military operatives were killed in an Israeli airstrike apparently guided by collaborators. Palestinians human rights groups sharply criticized Hamas for carrying out extra-judicial killings. "Everything starts and ends with money," said an operative from Israel's domestic intelligence agency, Shin Bet, which runs Palestinian informants. A uniformed army lieutenant speaking Arabic approached the man and promised to help his brother, but first asked him dozens of questions about life in Gaza, from the number of factories damaged in the latest war, to the mood on the streets and power supply. [...] the officer insisted on taking the man's mobile phone number. During the last round of Israel-Hamas fighting in 2012, several senior Hamas figures were killed in an airstrike, and the husband and five other alleged collaborators were pulled from prison by masked men and shot to death at a Gaza intersection.

 

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