Click to see full-size image. (Shin Bet)
The Israeli Shin Bet security agency announced on June 21 that it foiled dozens of planned “terror attacks” in the occupied West Bank directed by operatives of the Hamas Movement based in Turkey over the past year.
In a statement, the Shin Bet named several of the operatives in Hamas’s so-called West Bank Headquarters, a unit allegedly responsible for advancing attacks against Israel from or within the West Bank.
“Over the years, and with increased intensity over the past year, operatives in the West Bank Headquarters have been directing and advancing extensive military activity into Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] and Israel from Turkish soil, including recruiting operatives to carry out attacks and transferring weapons and funds into the area to advance military activity,” the security agency said.
Istanbul-based senior Hamas official Zaher Jabarin is the head of Hamas’s West Bank activity, and Ayman Abu Khalil heads the military wing there, according to the Shin Bet.
The security agency also named Ayman Sharawna, Muhammad Mallah, Majed Jaaba, Walid Abu Nassar, and Salam Yaish as operatives of Hamas’s West Bank Headquarters based in Turkey.
According to the agency, Sharawna worked to recruit operatives; Mallah, who spends part of his time in Qatar, worked to transfer funds for “terrorist activity”; Jaaba assisted in providing the weapon used in a November 2023 shooting attack at a Jerusalem-area checkpoint; Abu Nassar financed a Hamas network in Bethlehem; and Yaish recruited operatives to carry out attacks.
The Shin Bet said that the Hamas operatives “carry out their activities unhindered from Turkish territory,” and exploit “infrastructure in the country to transfer instructions and funds” to “terrorists” in the West Bank.
Last year, the security agency made similar accusations, saying that a Hamas-linked “terror network” in the West Bank directed by a Turkey-based operative, Mahmoud Radwan, was uncovered.
The Shin Bet’s accusations are very serious and could lead to tensions with Turkey, which has not yet commented on the matter.
These accusations also highlight a significant shift in Israel’s security priorities. Until recently, such claims were reserved exclusively for Iran and its regional proxies. The change likely stems from Turkey’s growing influence in the Middle East, underscored by the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria — a development that has placed Ankara directly on Israel’s border.
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