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| Sheikh Hassan Yousef is the founder of Hamas. |
The son of Hamas founder Hassan Yousef urged Israel to target the terror group’s leaders for assassination, even after the ceasefire reachedFriday.
“Assassinating Hamas leadership will not destroy Hamas, but it will teach them a lesson and hold them accountable,” Mosab Hassan Yousef told The Post in a phone interview. “Next time, before you get civilians on both sides involved in a bloodbath, you need to think 1,000 times. This is my personal suggestion.”
Mosab Yousef said top Hamas leaders like his father likely rode out the recent violence in secure underground bunkers, while using the deaths of their own people to score foreign propaganda points.
“Hundreds of children have paid the price. These type of people cannot get away with what they did. They should not feel safe for a day,” he said. “Hamas hates Israel more than they love their own children.”
Mosab Yousef, 43, said he follows regional developments closely, and attributed the latest round of violence to Hamas’ growing marginalization in recent years. The real estate dispute in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood — the ostensible trigger of the current unrest — was just a pretext, he said.
“Hamas was very disappointed by the Abraham Accords that ignored them completely,” he said of the peace deals Israel signed with several Mideast states last year. “It’s the new reality that President Donald Trump made in the region. This is a new reality and Hamas is not prepared to accept it.”
Much of that new reality came together during Trump’s final months in office. His signature agreements saw Israel formally normalize relations between Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Sudan and Morocco. Trump’s decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem and recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights provoked remarkably little reaction from Hamas.
“The Middle East understood Trump’s language very well. It was the language of fire. He did not show lots of tolerance,” Mosab Yousef said. “The seventh-century mentality of the Middle East misunderstands tolerance as weakness.”
Born in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Mosab Yousef was once groomed by his father to be a leader in the Palestinian terror movement. But in 1997, he began secretly collaborating with Israel’s internal security service, Shin Bet. For 10 years, he was one of their most valuable intelligence assets. His code name was “The Green Prince,” a nod to his exalted family background. A book and documentary film about his exploits followed in 2010 and 2014, respectively.
He later turned toward Christianity, sought political asylum in the United States, and became a citizen in 2018. He now lives quietly in California, where he enjoys free diving and yoga. His survives off speaking engagement fees and consulting work. Another brother, Suheib Youself, defected from Hamas in 2019, telling Israeli media he had become fed up with corruption and called the group a “racist terror organization that is dangerous for the Palestinian people.”
Mosab Yousef said he saw the light after a stint with his dad’s comrades in an Israeli jail during the mid-1990s. At Megiddo Prison, he witnessed Hamas inmates leading a brutal year-long campaign to weed out supposed Israeli collaborators.
“During that time, Hamas tortured and killed hundreds of prisoners,” he said, recalling vivid memories of needles being inserted under finger nails and bodies charred with burning plastics. “Many, if not all, had nothing to do with Israeli intelligence.
“I will never forget their screams,” he continued. “I started asking myself a question. What if Hamas succeeded in destroying Israel and building a state. Will they destroy our people in this way?”
Though Hamas was democratically elected by the Palestinians of Gaza in 2006, Mosab Yousef said the group was not as popular as they might appear from news footage.
“The silence of the majority of Gaza is not because they support Hamas, but because they are afraid of Hamas,” he said. “The people live in fear. Hamas rules over them by the sword. If you oppose Hamas they will shoot you or hang you immediately. You and your family are finished.”
Mosab Yousef said he has had no contact with his family since 2009. Though he travels frequently, he has no plans to ever make a journey home, as certain death would await him. His father has already blessed his assassination.
“[My father] publicly declared, ‘He is not my son’, which means if you want to get him, I am not going to stop you or come after you,” Mosab Yousef said.
“He made my blood halal.”
THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIME
Wants to be a somebody but is a nobody. So he calls himself the "Green Prince." Word has it in Shabak that he is not mentally stable. Others say Dr. Jekkyl/Mr. Hyde. Not someone to be trusted. Behavior towards those who went above and beyond to help him is noted. Opportunist is a better word.
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