World
Shin Bet says it foiled dozens of Hamas attacks led by Turkey-based operatives
The Shin Bet security agency announced Sunday that it foiled dozens of planned terror attacks in the West Bank directed by Hamas operatives in Turkey in the past year.
In a statement, the Shin Bet named several Turkey-based operatives in Hamas’s so-called West Bank Headquarters, a unit in the terror group 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 agency said.
According to the Shin Bet, Istanbul-based senior Hamas official Zaher Jabarin is the head of Hamas’s West Bank activity, and Ayman Abu Khalil heads the military wing in the territory.
The Shin Bet named several more operatives who it said reside in Turkey and operate under Hamas’s West Bank Headquarters.
They include Ayman Sharawna, who worked to recruit operatives; Muhammad Mallah, who spends part of his time in Qatar, and worked to transfer funds for terror activity; Majed Jaaba, who assisted in providing the weapon used in a November 2023 shooting attack at a Jerusalem-area checkpoint; Walid Abu Nassar, who financed a Hamas network in Bethlehem; and Salam Yaish, who recruited operatives to carry out attacks.
The Shin Bet said 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.
Earlier this year, the Shin Bet announced that a December 2025 investigation uncovered another Hamas-linked terror network in the West Bank that was directed by a Turkey-based operative and aimed to advance attacks against Israel.
According to the agency, the network was run by Mahmoud Radwan, a Hamas member released in a prisoner-hostage exchange and deported to Turkey in January 2025. He had been jailed in Israel for his role in the 2001 killing of Rishon Lezion resident Yossi Alfasi.
The Shin Bet said Radwan recruited two young men from the West Bank village of Azzun during a meeting in Turkey in December, in which he outlined his ongoing terror activity and sought to enlist them. The suspects allegedly agreed to join him.
Indictments were filed against the suspects, according to the Shin Bet.
Turkey has long had close ties with Hamas, and it hosts officials from the terror group in the country. Jerusalem has pressed Ankara to crack down on Hamas’s activity in Turkey, arguing that the Gaza-based Palestinian terror group uses its representatives there to orchestrate terror attacks against Israelis.
