The 23-year-old suspect resides in the West Bank, was recruited in Turkey and trained on Syrian soil. He was arrested before he could carry out deadly terror attacks against Israelis, like reported by jpost.com
A palestinian recruited by Hamas headquarters abroad to promote terror activity in Israel was charged at the end of March by the Samaria Military Court, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) said, officially clearing for release information about the suspect on Wednesday.
Qalqilya resident 23-year-old Malak Nazar Yousseff Kazmar was arrested in a joint Shin Bet, IDF and Israel Police operation on February 26 2017.
According to the Shin Bet, it became clear during his interrogation that Kazmar, who had lived in Turkish Cyprus for the last few years, had been recruited by Hamas while he was in Jordan in August of 2015 and sent to a military training camp in Syria’s Idlib province in January 2016. In the military camp Kazmar learned to shoot and underwent theoretical training on the production of explosive devices.
In January 2017, shortly before he returned to the West Bank, he met with Hamas operatives in Istanbul who instructed him to recruit additional Hamas operatives who lived in Israel.
Kazmar was arrested on his return to the West Bank, before he could carry out the instructions he was given to try to find potential activists who could join Hamas ranks.
During his interrogation, he turned over the contents of an encrypted memory card that he had received from his operators on Turkish soil which contained extensive security guidelines and information intended to assist him in carrying out his missions.
“This investigation illustrates the activity of the Hamas headquarters abroad, including on Turkish soil, under the direction of the head of the ‘Gadma’ Office, Saleh al-Arouri” the Shin Bet statement read.
Al-Arouri, one of the founders of Hamas’ military wing, was imprisoned by Israel for 15 years before being expelled to Syria. He fled to Turkey in 2012 when Hamas’ offices in Syria were shut. From Turkey he helped orchestrate the kidnapping and murder of the three Israeli teenagers in Gush Etzion in June 2014, which later triggered the Israel-Gaza conflict that lasted throughout the summer of that year.
“Hamas leadership continues to be assisted by activists who return to the West Bank to promote terrorist activity, while its leaders operate without interference in various countries abroad.”
Since the beginning of the latest wave of violence to hit Israel and the West Bank, numerous attacks by Hamas supporters and members have been thwarted in the West Bank. Last week, Shin Bet Director Nadav Argaman warned the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that the current calm in violence is “deceiving” and that Hamas and other organized terror cells continue to plan attacks.
“The relative calm that we are experiencing at this time is quite deceiving, it’s misleading and deluding because Hamas and global jihadi infrastructure are working every day in attempting to conduct terrorist attacks in Israeli territory,” he said.
