Top Hamas engineer, tactician convicted in Beersheba court

Dar’ar Abu Sisi convicted of involvement in developing Hamas’ homemade inventory of rockets and mortars.

By YONAH JEREMY BOB
Rocket fired from the Gaza Strip toward Israel. [File] (photo credit: REUTERS)
Rocket fired from the Gaza Strip toward Israel. [File]
(photo credit: REUTERS)
The Beersheba District Court on Sunday convicted Dar’ar Abu Sisi of a range of security crimes in his roles as one of Hamas’s top engineers and tacticians.
Sisi was convicted of leading the establishment of Hamas’s equivalent of a war college to systematically improve its commanders’ fighting tactics.
He was appointed to the position by Hamas military commanders Mohammed Deif and Ahmed Jabari after the 2008-2009 Gaza war.
Sisi was also convicted of helping to develop Hamas’s inventory of homemade rockets and mortars, including increasing their range to be able to strike Israeli cities a greater distance from Gaza.
He was also involved in developing weapons which could pierce IDF armored vehicles.
The Southern District Attorney’s Office expects to request a 21-year prison sentence at the next hearing on June 14. Sisi confessed to the full range of charges against him.
Separately, in November 2014, the Southern District Attorney’s Office filed an indictment with the Beersheba District Court against Akram Juda, a Hamas tunnels engineer. Juda was accused of being responsible for electricity in Hamas’s Gaza Strip tunnel network, as well as of assembling engines for drilling the tunnels.
The indictment alleged that Juda was responsible for electricity and engineering issues for five of Hamas’s attack tunnels, which allowed the terrorist organization to progress behind the IDF’s defense lines during this summer’s war. He was also involved as a Hamas engineer in the construction of rockets and bombs, according to the indictment.


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