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‘Son of Hamas’ reveals Israel’s counter-terror techniques and how he saved his father’s life

In new book, Mosab Yousef – the son a founding member of Hamas who helped Israel  foil suicide bombings – reveals the two conditions he made for helping Israeli authorities.

By World Israel News Staff

Twelve years ago, Mosab Hassan Yousef went public with a remarkable story.

The son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, one of the founding members of the Hamas terrorist organization, Mosab had become an Israeli agent, helping Israel’s secretive Shin Bet internal security agency foil numerous terror attacks from 1997 to 2007.

Along the way, Yousef left Islam, converting to Christianity and eventually immigrating to the United States, where he lobbied against Hamas and other Palestinian Arab terror groups.

Dubbed the “Green Prince,” Yousef revealed much of his story in his first book, 2010’s Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices.

Now, 12 years after his first book and 14 years after he publicly renounced Hamas, Yousef has published a second book, released in Hebrew under the title My Journey to Freedom.

Since the release of Son of Hamas, Yousef has traded the luxury of Los Angeles for a more austere life of contemplation, yoga, and meditation, moving to a spartan bungalow in Southeast Asia.

In My Journey to Freedom, Yousef details the techniques used by Israeli security agencies – chief among them the Shin Bet – to gather intel on terrorist threats, including how he, as a Shin Bet agent, extracted information from Hamas terrorists.

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Yousef noted his two conditions for working on behalf of Israel’s Shin Bet: first, he insisted that no terrorists targeted thanks to his help be liquidated, rather they must be arrested.

Second, Yousef asked that the Shin Bet spare his father, Sheikh Hassan Yousef.

In one occasion, Yousef recalls, Israeli soldiers carrying out a raid were ordered not to search the home where the Hamas cofounder was located, despite the Shin Bet knowing his precise location.

When Yousef called his father afterwards, the elder Yousef excitedly claimed that his prayers were answered, noting that the IDF had searched every building on the block, “except this one”.

In 2019, Yousef’s younger brother, Suheib Yousef, also renounced the Hamas terrorist organization, fleeing the Gaza Strip to join his older brother in Southeast Asia.