Hamas sources have revealed new details about the kidnapping of the movement’s prominent security official, Moin al-Arabid, last Tuesday at the hands of Israeli special forces, who carried out a rare operation in the heart of traffic control areas west of Gaza.
The operation resulted in the death of the hijacker’s wife, Samah al-Arabidi, and the wounding of his two sons, his daughter, and two companions, in addition to the deaths of two children who were in the area when Israeli special forces conducted the operation.
The beginning of the process
Sources familiar with the details of the investigation told Asharq Al-Awsat that the security operation began about two months ago, when officers of Israel’s General Security Service (Shin Bet) received the identity of an international aid organization that would help Palestinians by setting up small projects, including a stand selling vegetables, beverages and more. Al-Katiba neighborhood, west of Gaza.
According to sources, the Shin Bet used Palestinian members, including women, to run the project and provided them with vegetables daily under the pretense that it was an aid to the organization and that the proceeds from their sale would benefit the project’s beneficiaries, before later asking them to monitor their homes and the movements of specific individuals.
Sources explained that those responsible for the project later learned after the operation that they were Shin Bet intelligence agents. They indicated that on a particular day of the operation, new people appeared at some of the stalls, while others had been there since the previous day selling vegetables. It turned out that they were Shin Bet members who came to the place and hid the weapons in these stalls. When Zero Hour began to attack, they participated in the operation, then disappeared and retreated.
This is not the first time that Israel has used the status of international institutions to carry out operations in the Gaza Strip, including what happened in March 2024 when special forces entered the Shifa medical complex before military reinforcements arrived.
pre-existence
Regarding the latest operation in western Gaza, sources indicated that members of the Israeli special forces appeared to have entered the area only a few times, on the sly, in order to better understand the final plan of the operation. However, they relied on what was observed by intelligence officials who, according to the ongoing investigation so far, do not seem to know the specific purpose of the operation and the actual plan. Some of them also received what they asked from their Israeli owners.
The investigation indicated that the Shin Bet members who carried out the operation, several of them had been at the site a day or two earlier in moving vehicles, at least one of which was bombed and destroyed by Israeli aircraft after the event.
zero moment
As the attack began, riot police tried to surprise al-Arabidi and shot him as he was leaving the house with his companion, but he managed to shoot at them while they fired drug-laced bullets while the other companion opened fire on the forces. His two sons and his wife also opened fire on the forces before all were hit by bullets, and a small drone, a “quadcopter”, dropped a bomb on the house.
His wife was killed in the attack, one son was seriously injured, and another brother, who was to be married that day, lost his eye. Other companions and family members were also injured.
According to the investigation with the injured, at the moment when the clash occurred, al-Arabid tried to escape from the back of the house, but he was surprised that there was another force of Israeli forces and they chased him, when he was injured and crawled, he shot them, but they threw a sound bomb near them and then kidnapped him.
One of the sources said that the initial denial of al-Arabidi’s abduction was a result of his son’s claim that he had managed to escape and that the family did not know that other forces on the ground had abducted him, leading to confusion at the start of the event.
The investigation revealed that after al-Arabidi fled, Israeli special forces searched the wounded to determine his identity before leaving them and some of them bleeding, including his wife, before he was arrested from the street behind the house as he tried to escape despite his injuries.
Detention of intelligence agents
According to one of the sources, at least 36 suspects have been arrested so far and are being investigated on suspicion of aiding Israeli special forces, indicating that some of them have confessed to spying for Israel and are still being investigated.
In a story close to Asharq Al-Awsat’s sources, the Guardian’s security platform in Gaza revealed that 3 intelligence officers, including a woman, were arrested and that they were working with an international aid organization to facilitate movement in the region and gather information. indicating that the outbreak of the fighting forced special forces to assist from the aircraft. of Israel.
Hamas has arrested dozens of suspects in a similar operation since Israel’s special forces carried out several months of extensive activity in the Gaza Strip in 2018.
A new kidnapping attempt.
Early on Friday, the Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad Movement, revealed that members of the armed group attempted to kidnap one of its members in the town of Al-Karara, northeast of Khan Younis. which resulted in the death and injury of several members of that gang.
It indicated that Israeli drones intervened in the withdrawal of special forces from the site, and its members killed one of the brigade members, Fadi al-Abdallah, after he was shot and left on the ground.
A field source told Asharq Al-Awsat that al-Abdallah arrived at the Nasser Medical Complex in handcuffs, indicating that the kidnapping would be successful and that he may have been investigated before the kidnapping attempt, and then faced the death penalty, indicating that the investigation is ongoing.
