Israeli Intelligence Burnishes Image at Expense of Hamas

JERUSALEM (Feb. 24) -- It's been quite a week for the much-vaunted Israeli intelligence services. First were accusations that Israel was behind the killing last month of a senior Hamas official in Dubai and that operatives stole the identity of British-Israelis here. In Dubai today, police said they identified 15 more suspects in the case, at least 10 of whom had also used stolen passports.

Now, a respected Israeli newspaper reports that the son of one of the founders of the Islamic Hamas movement was a secret Israeli agent for over a decade. According to the Ha'aretz newspaper, Mosab Hassan Yousef, who converted to Christianity and now lives in California, helped prevent dozens of suicide attacks and saved hundreds of Israeli lives.

Yousef is the son of Hamas founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef, who is serving a six-year sentence in an Israeli prison. Writing on a Hamas Web site, Hamas spokesman Mushir al-Masri accused Ha'aretz of "fabrications and lies." Mosab Yousef's memoir "Son of Hamas" is being published next week in the United States.

According to Ha'aretz, during the second intifada that began in 2000, intelligence provided by Yousef led to the arrests of a number of high-ranking Palestinian figures responsible for planning suicide bombings. His code name was "the Green Prince" -- green for the Hamas color and prince as a reference to his status as the son of one of the founders of Hamas.

Speaking from his home in California, Yousef told Ha'aretz that he wishes he were in Gaza now to try to help free Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was captured by Hamas in June 2005.

"I would put on an army uniform and join Israel's special forces in order to liberate Gilad Shalit," he said. "If I were there, I could help. We wasted so many years with investigations and arrests to capture the very terrorists that they now want to release in return for Shalit. That must not be done."

Yousef was referring to currently stalled negotiations in which Israel would free about 1,000 prisoners, many of them from Hamas, in exchange for Shalit.

Ten years ago, Yousef became a devout Christian. In 2007, he fled the West Bank and moved to California after he went public with his conversion. In his book and in the article in Ha'aretz, he describes how he was recruited by Shin Bet, the Israeli security agency, in 1996 when he was in prison. He was released the next year and says he began cooperating with Israel.


In his book, Yousef names his handler as Captain Loai, without using a last name.

"So many people owe him their life and don't even know it," Captain Loai says in the book. "People who did a lot less were awarded the Israel Security Prize. He certainly deserves it."

The revelations, if proven true, are another blow to Hamas, coming so soon after the assassination of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai. Dubai police said that at least two of the additional 15 suspects named today left for Iran by boat after the killing, strengthening the assumption that the killers were aided by a mole from within Hamas.

It is especially humiliating that Israel was able to recruit such a high-level Hamas member as a spy. Israeli security officials would not confirm that Yousef worked for Israel but said the methods of recruitment he describes are consistent with those used by the Shin Bet.

But there is also potential damage to Israel from Yousef's book.

"Revealing how he was recruited and how he operated could cause great damage," Ehud Yatom, a former top Shin Bet official told Army Radio. "The damage is in the little secrets of the recruitment process."