terrorists
terroristsIsrael news photo: Ya Libnan

The head of the military wing of the Hamas terrorist organization's Ramallah area section, known as the "master bomber", has been in solitary confinement since his arrest by IDF Duvdevan special unit soldiers five years ago, after an eight year search.

According to an Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet)  intelligence report, brought in the Ha’aretz Hebrew daily, this did not prevent his being able to mastermind and supervise the carrying out of a terrorist shooting attack from his Israeli prison cell. Two residents of Maaleh Ephraim were wounded moderately in the recent shooting attack, which he managed from his jail cell.

The prisoner, Ibrahim Hamed, is responsible for the murder of 96 Israelis in terror attacks that he planned and some of which he personally executed. Israeli Security claims he still serves as the inspiration for other Hamas terrorists.

The report was part of the material given to the courts in a session on the conditions of Hamed’s imprisonment. Hamed requested to be released from solitary confinement to the prison wing where other terrorists are incarcerated. The ISA showed evidence of his ability to continue terrorist activity while in solitary confinement, and expressed fears that he would only increase his terrorist activities and influence inside and outside the prison if allowed to join other convicted terrorist prisoners.

Judge Klara Regiano accepted the ISA position, which represents the government’s stand on the issue, and ordered the present conditions under which Hamed is held to continue unchanged. 

“I have been convinced”, wrote the judge, “that the intelligence reports are evidence of a clear and present suspicion that removing the defendant from solitary may endanger Israel’s security. There is a series of intelligence reports reaching up to the present time, that point to the defendant’s [terrorist] activities even when kept apart from other inmates.”

Hamed is on the Hamas list of terrorists it demanded in exchange for IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, held incommunicado in Gaza for five years.

His record includes dispatching the suicide bombers who blew up in Zion Square, Jerusalem, killing 11 people on December 1, 2001,  those who blew themselves up in the Jerusalem Moment Cafe on March 9, 2002, killing 12, as well as the Hebrew University cafe bomb that killed nne students on July 31, 2002.

He also planned  two suicide attacks on November 9, 2003 at Jerusalem's Cafe Hillel and a major junction in the capital city, where 17 people killed.