“I was raised in Hamas, I worked for Hamas, but when I was exposed to corruption, I left. I cut off ties,” said Suheib Yousef, son of the terror group’s co-founder.
Suheib Yousef, son of Hamas co-founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef, has fled from the terrorist organization to an undisclosed Asian country.
On Wednesday, Israel’s Channel 12 television aired an interview with Israeli-Palestinian affairs correspondent Ohad Hemo that exposed a long list of reasons for his disenchantment with Hamas.
Suheib Yousef said that the corruption among Hamas members in Turkey was a catalyst for his leaving his post in Hamas’s “political branch” in the country and for giving the interview.
He claimed that this branch of Hamas was actually a spy unit with advanced listening equipment that taps Palestinian Authority leaders in Ramallah as well as Israel and other Arab countries.
“Hamas operates security and military operations on Turkish soil under the cover of civil society,” he said. “They have security centers from which they operate advanced listening equipment, to listen to people and (Palestinian) leaders in Ramallah.”
Yousef added that Hamas’s intelligence gathering “isn’t for the Palestinian cause,” but rather sold “to Iran in return for financial assistance.”
The payouts go through banks in Turkey.
Hamas in Turkey is also used to conscript people, including children, to commit terror attacks against Israelis, he said.
Hamas Not Interested in Palestinian Cause
Yousef clarified that Hamas has no desire to improve the lives of Palestinian people or to establish a Palestinian state.
“The point of the attacks in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) is to kill civilians, not for the aim of resistance, or Jerusalem, not for liberating Palestinian land, and not even because they hate Jews,” he said. “They send out these innocents because they want to export the crisis [from Gaza] to the West Bank.”
He revealed that he was “shocked by the behavior” of Hamas leaders who ignore the hardship and poverty in Gaza while living extravagant lives in Turkey.
“Hamas leaders [in Turkey] live in fancy hotels and luxury towers, their kids learn at private schools and they are very well paid by Hamas,” Yousef said. “They get between four and five thousand dollars a month; they have guards, swimming pools, country clubs. They pay $200 for one course [at fancy restaurants] for one person and a family in Gaza lives on $100 per month.”
Suheib is the second son of the Hamas co-founder to desert the terrorist organization. His older brother, Mosab became an undercover agent the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, from 1997 to 2007.
Shin Bet’s Most Valuable Informer
Mosab is considered the Shin Bet‘s most valuable informer, as he prevented dozens of suicide attacks and assassinations on Israeli citizens and has helped Israel hunt down terrorists, including his own father.
Suheib, however, made clear in the interview that he had never and would never betray Hamas by working for Israeli intelligence even though, he said, Hamas is a “racist terror organization that is dangerous for the Palestinian people.”
“I was raised in Hamas, I worked for Hamas, but when I was exposed to corruption, I left. I cut off ties,” he said.
Yousef had invited his father and those following Hamas ideology to open their eyes to the reality of the corruption in the terrorist organization.
“I call on the leaders of Hamas, including my father, to resign from this corrupt Hamas movement,” he said. “I’m sure my father also knows there are many corrupt members.”
Since winning elections in 2006, Hamas has controlled the Gaza Strip. In 2007, Hamas ousted the Fatah party, dominated by the Palestinian Authority.
According to The National news site, supporters of Sheikh Hassan Youssef denounced his two sons, claiming they were “spreading Israeli propaganda.”
