image source, Reuters
On Monday, the Israeli police and the General Security Service (Shin Bet) arrested the sister of the head of the Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, in the town of Tel Saba in the Negev, southern Israel.
The Israeli police stated that during the raid on her home, they found sums of money and evidence linking her to “crimes that endanger the State of Israel.”
The police confirmed in a statement that “Sabah Abdel Salam Haniyeh (57 years old) is being detained in Tel Saba and is subject to an investigation involving the Internal Security Agency (Shin Bet).” The police said in their statement that they suspect Haniyeh of “communicating with Hamas activists, belonging to the organization, and inciting and supporting terrorist acts.”
The police explained that she would be presented to the Beersheba Magistrate Court on Monday to consider extending her detention.
The head of the Hamas political bureau, who resides in Doha, has two sisters who live in southern Israel and hold its nationality due to their marriage to Israeli Arabs.
image source, Israeli police
Storming the home of Sabah Haniyeh, sister of Ismail Haniyeh, head of the political bureau of Hamas
The Israeli police and the General Security Service (Shin Bet) said in a joint statement that their forces, along with reinforcements from the Border Guard, carried out a security operation called “Early Sunrise,” during which they arrested a relative of the Hamas leader who lives in the town of Tel Saba, east of the city of Beersheba.
The statement added that she was arrested on suspicion of having made contact with leaders and activists in the Hamas movement and inciting to carry out “terrorist operations” in Israel.
Ismail Haniyeh is a Palestinian politician, head of the political bureau of the Hamas movement, and prime minister of the tenth Palestinian government.
Israel imprisoned him in 1989 for three years, after which he was exiled to Marj al-Zuhur on the Lebanese-Palestinian border with a number of Hamas leaders, where he spent a full year in deportation in 1992.
Haniyeh lives in Qatar and has not visited the Gaza Strip for a long time.
According to information, there are 7 leaders of the Hamas movement – which some countries classify as terrorist – living in Qatar, including Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Meshaal. The Times newspaper estimates Haniyeh’s wealth at about 4 billion US dollars.
After the October 7 attack, the name of Ismail Haniyeh resurfaced, knowing that many confirmed that Hamas’ political leaders were not aware of the attack on Israel.
The war broke out following an attack carried out by Hamas on southern Israel, killing 1,160 people, most of them civilians, according to official Israeli figures.
During the attack, about 250 people were kidnapped, 130 of whom are still hostage in Gaza, and 34 of them are believed to have died, according to official Israeli estimates.
Israel pledged to “eliminate” Hamas and has since launched intense bombing, and began a ground attack on October 27, killing more than 32,000 people, the majority of whom were women and children, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza.
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