Saudi paper says Shin Bet phoned Hamas men with ultimatum before strikes

A Saudi-owned newspaper, Asharq Al-Awsat, has reported that officers of Israel's Shin Bet security agency have been telephoning Hamas operatives in the Gaza Strip and giving them an ultimatum before killing them: move away from their relatives and be struck alone, or stay where they are and risk a strike that also kills family members. Israeli outlets N12 and News.co.il relayed the report, as did Joe Truzman, an analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington research institute.

According to N12's summary of the newspaper, there have been at least five such cases in recent months. News.co.il said the paper described the choice as going up alone to the roof of the building the operative was in and being killed there, or being killed together with relatives in a strike. The newspaper also noted, according to News.co.il, a recent series of killings of Hamas members on side streets or on rooftops.

The case named in the reports

One case is named. Truzman wrote that Muhammad al-Bayouk, a Hamas member from Khan Yunis, received a phone call from a Shin Bet officer, climbed onto a roof and was hit by a missile. He said the killing, carried out by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), took place several days before his post.

A later News.co.il report, citing sources in Gaza who it said confirmed the account, gave his name as Mohammed Alyan al-Bayouk. In that version the call came from the IDF rather than the Shin Bet, and the two options were to be attacked along with his family inside a school being used as a shelter for displaced people, or to go up to the roof by himself. He chose to take the danger away from his family, the report said, and was killed on the roof by a missile fired from an aircraft.

What the Shin Bet is

The Shin Bet, formally the Israel Security Agency, is Israel's internal security and intelligence service. Alongside counter-terrorism work inside Israel and the West Bank, it supplies intelligence used by the military in Gaza, including for targeted strikes on members of armed groups. Hamas is the Islamist movement that has governed the Gaza Strip and whose armed wing has fought Israel there.

Khan Yunis is a city in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. Many residents of Gaza have been displaced from their homes, and schools have been used as shelters, which is the setting the second News.co.il report describes for the al-Bayouk case.

Where the account comes from

Asharq Al-Awsat is a Saudi-owned, pan-Arab daily. None of the organisations relaying the story say they have seen recordings of the calls or spoken to Israeli officials about them. The account of al-Bayouk's death rests on the newspaper and, in News.co.il's later report, on unnamed sources in Gaza. Israeli outlets framed the story as a foreign report, the usual way Israeli media handle claims about intelligence operations that have not been officially confirmed.

Where the reports differ

• Who made the call. Truzman and the first News.co.il report attribute the calls to the Shin Bet. The second News.co.il report, describing the al-Bayouk case, says the call came from the IDF.
• Timeframe. N12 says the calls took place over recent months; News.co.il describes several recent cases without a timeframe.
• Spelling of the name. The operative is given as Muhammad al-Bayouk by Truzman and as Mohammed Alyan al-Bayouk by News.co.il, which reflects transliteration from Arabic and Hebrew.

What the reports do not say

None of the reports include a response from the Shin Bet, the IDF or Hamas. They do not say how many people have been killed after receiving such calls beyond the figure of at least five cases attributed to the newspaper, and only one of those cases is named. They do not say what rank or role al-Bayouk held in Hamas, the exact date of the strike, or whether anyone else was hurt. They do not explain how the operatives' phone numbers were obtained, whether any operative refused the choice, or what happened in those cases. The reports also do not say whether the calls were a formal policy or individual decisions by officers.