IDF arrests senior Hamas figure Hassan Yousef in West Bank

Yousef is the father of Mosab Hassan Yousef, the Ramallah-born Hamas operative who secretly helped the Shin Bet sabotage dozens of terrorist attacks during the second intifada.

By YAAKOV LAPPIN
Updated: OCTOBER 21, 2015 05:42
Sheikh Hassan Yousef (photo credit: AFP PHOTO)
Sheikh Hassan Yousef
(photo credit: AFP PHOTO)
The IDF, together with the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), arrested a senior Hamas leader on Tuesday during a raid on his West Bank home.
Hassan Yousef is senior Hamas leader in the territory. Security forces arrested him in Beitunya, west of Ramallah.
Yousef, 60, is involved in intensive activities aimed at inciting Palestinians to commit acts of terrorism, according to the army.
He has been arrested and jailed in Israel on several occasions, the IDF said, and “ferments violence and conflict against Israel among the Palestinian public.”
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Soldiers from the Artillery Corps’ Ra’am Battalion and units from the Binyamin Territorial Brigade arrested Yousef together with the Shin Bet, and took him in for questioning.
Yousef’s son, Mosab, worked as an undercover Shin Bet informer and is credited with foiling many deadly terrorist attacks between 1997 and 2007.
His autobiography, Son of Hamas, was published in 2010. He has sought asylum in the US.
The IDF also demolished the home of Hebron terrorist Mahar al-Hashlamun early on Tuesday. Hashlamun ran over and stabbed an Israeli woman, Dalia Lemkus, to death in November 2014, and wounded two additional civilians at Alon Shvut junction. The terrorist was shot and wounded by a civilian security guard, and arrested by the IDF.
The IDF said the home was demolished by Engineering Corps units, in line with instructions from Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon.
“Demolishing the home was carried out as part of the ongoing war against terrorism, and forms a clear message of deterrence, that involvement in terrorism has a price,” the IDF said.
On October 15, the army distributed seven notices to the families of terrorists notifying them of Israel’s intention to demolish their homes shortly.
Engineering Corps soldiers will soon demolish the homes of the terrorist who carried out the attack in Dolev on June 19, murdering Danny Gonen, the two terrorists who carried out the attack in Shvut Rahel on June 29, killing Malachi Rosenfeld, and the three terrorists who carried out the attack between Alon Moreh and Itamar on October 1, shooting dead parents Naama and Eitam Henkin.
They will also destroy the homes of those who carried out a stabbing attack in Jerusalem’s Old City, murdering Aharon Banita and Nehemia Lavi.