Overview
- On September 5, 2018, the Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry in the Gaza Strip issued an announcement on the death of Muqaddam (Lieutenant Colonel) Abdel Rahim Ahmad Ahmad Abbas (Abu Abbas). He had served as chief of Security and Operations in the Bomb Disposal General Department of the Palestinian Police. Concurrently with the announcement of the Interior Ministry, the Hamas military wing published a death notice of its own on Abdel Rahim Abbas’s death, noting that he had served as a Hamas military wing field commander.
Right: Death notice for Abdel Rahim Abbas, appearing on the website of the Palestinian police in the Gaza Strip. Left: Abdel Rahim Abbas wearing Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades uniform in a death notice issued by the Hamas military wing (Hamas military wing website, September 5, 2018).
These different positions of Abu Abbas are yet another proof of the prevailing phenomenon of “dual identity” of operatives of the security services in the Gaza Strip: operatives in the various security services concurrently serve in the Hamas military wing. This phenomenon which, in the ITIC’s assessment, is widespread, was clearly evident from the analysis of the identity of the Palestinian casualties in the various IDF operations in the Gaza Strip (Pillar of Defense, Cast Lead, and Protective Edge). The “dual identity” allows Hamas to employ military operatives in the security services, give their service the legitimacy of a government employee, and pay them on a regular basis salaries which are intended for operatives of the security services in the Gaza Strip. In times of emergency, these operatives serve as part of Hamas’s military force against Israel.
Abu Abbas’s “dual identity”
- On September 5, 2018, the Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry in the Gaza Strip issued an announcement on the death of Muqaddam (Lieutenant Colonel) Abdel Rahim Ahmad Ahmad Abbas (Abu Abbas), who had served as chief of Security and Operations in the Bomb Disposal General Department of the Palestinian Police in the Gaza Strip. According to the announcement issued by the Interior Ministry, he died in an explosion which took place in the Bomb Disposal General Department in the police headquarters in western Gaza City (website of the Gaza Strip Interior Ministry, September 5, 2018; website of the Gaza Strip Palestinian Police, September 6, 2018).
- At the same time with the Interior Ministry’s announcement, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, published a death notice on its website for Abdel Rahim Ahmad Ahmad Abbas. According to the notice, he had served as a field commander in the military wing (website of the Hamas military wing, September 5, 2018). The notice includes a photo showing Abdel Rahim Ahmad Ahmad Abbas wearing the military wing uniform.
- Abdel Rahim Abbas’s funeral was attended by Hamas’s senior officials and senior members of the internal security forces. Among the prominent figures attending the ceremony were Ismail Haniya, chairman of the Hamas’s Political Bureau; Ahmad Bahar, deputy speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council; and Tawfiq Abu Na’im, commander of the internal security forces in the Gaza Strip. In his speech, Ismail Haniya said that the way of the “resistance” (i.e., terrorism) is the shortest way to Jerusalem, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and Palestine. He stressed that Hamas refuses to give up any inch of Palestine, Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa, and objects to normalization with Israel (Hamas’s website, September 6, 2018; website of the Interior Ministry in the Gaza Strip, September 6, 2018).
Ismail Haniya and other senior officials of Hamas and the security services attending the funeral (Hamas’s website, September 6, 2018)
