Photo from Wikimedia Commons. Suheib Yousef, son of Hamas co-founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef, defected from Hamas and spoke out against the terror group’s corruption and racism in a July 3 interview with Israel’s Channel 12.
According to the Times of Israel, Yousef explained that he had been working in a Hamas operation in Turkey that aimed to gather intelligence on Palestinian leaders in the West Bank as well as other Arab leaders; the operation also attempted to enlist Palestinians to launch terror attacks against Israelis in the West Bank.
“The point of the attacks in the West Bank is to kill civilians, not for the aim of resistance, nor Jerusalem; not for liberating Palestinian land, and not even because they hate Jews,” Yousef said. “They send out these innocents because they want to export the crisis [from Gaza] to the West Bank.”
He also said that Hamas would sell the intelligence they gathered to Iran.
Yousef left the terror group in June because he was fed up with the terror group’s lavish lifestyle, pointing out that in Turkey, Hamas members would frequently eat $200 meals at fancy restaurants.
“They pay $200 for one course for one person and a family in Gaza lives on $100 per month?” Yousef said.
Hamas paid its members in Turkey around $4,000 to $5,000 a month, according to Yousef, where they lived “in fancy hotels and luxury towers.”
Yousef also criticized Hamas’ use of civilians to terrorize Israelis at the Israel-Gaza border during the weekly riots, saying that it’s an example of how Hamas “is a racist terror organization that is dangerous for the Palestinian people.” He went onto say that he doesn’t hold any anti-Semitic views.
However, Yousef distanced himself from his elder brother Mosab, who worked as a double agent for Israel’s Shin Bet to funnel Hamas intelligence to the Israeli government from 1997 to 2007.
“I was loyal to [Hamas],” Yousef said.
Mosab sought refuge in the United States in 2010, where he published a book titled “Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices” about the terror group and why he chose to leave it; the book was turned into a documentary titled “The Green Prince” in 2014.
Hamas and members of Fatah, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ party, are rallying to Sheikh Yousef’s defense. Hamas is claiming that Yousef’s comments against Hamas are part of a “Zionist plot” against Hamas; Hamas also organized a rally at Sheikh Yousef’s West Bank home in support of the Hamas co-founder.
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