Israeli Arab caught spying on Iron Dome system for Hamas

Married to a Gazan, Mohammad Abu Adra could travel freely to the Strip and has been passing information on to the enemy for 18 months.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

An Israeli Arab working for Hamas for the past 18 months has been arrested by the Shin Bet, Israel’s security service announced Friday.

He was indicted for membership in a terrorist organization, committing treason, and passing information to the enemy, among other charges.

The Shin Bet netted Mohammad Abu Adra at the beginning of February. Only one part of his clandestine activities was publicized – that he had been locating for his handlers the various Iron Dome systems set up in various parts of the country.

This was in order help the terrorists plan where they could more effectively launch their short-range missiles and rockets into Israel.

The son of an Israeli Bedouin father and Gazan mother, the 43-year-old Rehovot resident, also married to a woman from Gaza, was allowed to use the Erez crossing on a regular basis to travel between his home in Israel and the Strip.

According to the Shin Bet statement following the arrest, Hamas constantly seeks out people who have such freedom of movement.

Hamas “is ceaselessly working to recruit Israeli citizens for the purpose of intelligence gathering in order to enable terror attacks in Israel,” it said.

“The Shin Bet takes seriously the exploitation of Israeli citizenship for aiding terror activities and will continue to act to thwart such actions by Hamas and [other the terror organizations] in the Gaza Strip, and will seek to prosecute those who aid terrorism,” the statement added.

In January 2020, the Shin Bet arrested two Israeli Arabs for spying for Hamas, although their activities were discovered only some three months after having been recruited. One of them, Rajab Daka, had been tasked with finding out exactly where Gazan rockets had landed during the two major rounds of launches in 2019.

In May 2019, Hamas and other terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip indiscriminately fired almost 700 rockets over the border, killing three and wounding over 100 civilians. In November, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad launched 190 missiles at southern and central Israel in response to the targeted killing of one of its top commanders, wounding several civilians.