Shin Bet charges Bedouin for allegedly joining Israel military to spy for Palestinian resistance group

Israel’s internal intelligence agency, Shin Bet, has charged a Bedouin man from the south of the occupied country for allegedly joining the Israeli military to spy for a Palestinian resistance group.

25-year-old Shehadeh Abu Alqian, who hails from a Palestinian Bedouin village near Hura in the northern Negev desert region, was charged by the agency today for acting under the instructions of the Gaza Strip-based Mujahideen Brigades to join the Israeli military “for the purpose of promoting terrorist activity and gathering intelligence in Israeli territory”.

After his father’s home was ordered to be demolished by Israeli occupation authorities in 2019, Abu Alqian allegedly aimed to “act against the State of Israel and against its security”, today’s indictment stated.

He then “contacted an operative in a terrorist organisation, a resident of Gaza, [and] expressed his desire to support the Gaza Strip’s fight against Israel, and enlist” in the Mujahideen Brigades which he joined in 2021.

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It was on 22 May this year that Abu Alqian enlisted in the Israeli military but, even before that enlistment, he reportedly conducted illegal activities such as stealing an M4 rifle from an Israeli soldier waiting at a bus station in the south.

During his recruitment process, he allegedly provided the Palestinian militant group with the names, phone numbers and pictures of Bedouin soldiers serving in the Israeli military. He also provided information on the army’s helicopter activity, training in his hometown’s area and pictures of a military base and the train station at Beersheba.

Abu Alqian was charged by Shin Bet for gathering internal intelligence from the military, photographing sites in Israel and stealing weapons in order to transfer them to “terrorist elements”, all of which together can result in a potential life sentence.

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