Shin Bet reportedly phones Hamas members in Gaza with a rooftop ultimatum

Israel's Shin Bet security service has in recent weeks telephoned Hamas operatives in the Gaza Strip and told them to choose between being killed alone or being killed in a strike alongside their relatives, according to the Saudi-owned pan-Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, whose account was relayed by two outlets. The Israeli news channel News.co.il reported that the newspaper described several separate cases in which a call was placed and the operative was told either to go up alone to the roof of the building where he was staying, or to be hit together with his family.

One case named in the coverage is that of Muhammad al-Bayouk, described as a Hamas member from Khan Yunis. Joe Truzman, an analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), wrote that al-Bayouk received a call from a Shin Bet officer who presented him with the ultimatum, after which he climbed onto a roof and was hit by a missile. Truzman said the killing, which he attributed to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), took place several days before his post.

What the Shin Bet is

The Shin Bet, formally the Israel Security Agency and known in Hebrew by the acronym Shabak, is Israel's internal security service. Alongside its work inside Israel and the West Bank, it gathers intelligence on armed groups in Gaza and supplies the military with information used to locate and target individual operatives. Calls from its officers to people in Gaza have featured in Israeli and Arab reporting before; the claim in this case concerns what those officers are said to be telling the people they reach.

The Hebrew report uses the word chisul, which translates literally as "elimination" and is the standard Israeli term for a targeted killing of a named militant. The headline on the News.co.il item framed the choice as one between being eliminated alone and being eliminated with one's family.

Where Khan Yunis is

Khan Yunis is a city in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, the narrow coastal territory that Hamas, the Islamist movement, has governed and from which it has fought Israel. The area around the city has been the scene of repeated Israeli military operations, and local Hamas members there are among those Israel has sought to target.

The pattern the newspaper describes

According to the Hebrew summary of the Asharq Al-Awsat report, there has recently been a series of killings of Hamas operatives either on side streets or on the rooftops of buildings. The newspaper links that pattern to the phone calls: an operative who leaves his family and moves to an exposed spot can be struck without the people sheltering with him being in the blast area. Truzman characterised the message as a harsh choice between separating from family and dying alone, or staying with them and putting their lives at risk.

Both outlets present the information as Asharq Al-Awsat's reporting rather than as their own findings. Asharq Al-Awsat is owned by Saudi interests and circulates across the Arabic-speaking world. Neither outlet quotes a named Palestinian witness, relative or official, and neither cites a statement from Israel.

How the two accounts compare

The two reports agree on the core claim: that the Shin Bet contacts Hamas members by phone and tells them they can be killed alone or with their families. They differ in emphasis. The News.co.il item speaks of several cases and specifies the instruction to go up to the roof alone. Truzman's post centres on the single case of al-Bayouk and describes him climbing onto a roof before being struck. Both texts as received appear to be cut off partway through, so neither may contain the full detail of the original newspaper report.

What the reports do not say

Neither report includes any response from the Shin Bet, the IDF or the Israeli government, so the claim that such calls are made, and what is said in them, has not been confirmed by Israel in this material. Neither gives the date of al-Bayouk's death beyond "several days" earlier, his role within Hamas, or whether anyone else was hurt when he was struck.

The reports do not state how many cases Asharq Al-Awsat identified, how the newspaper learned of the calls, or whether any operative who received such a call refused and what followed. They also do not say whether Hamas has commented. Until further reporting or an official statement emerges, the account rests on a single newspaper's reporting as passed on by these two outlets.