Mahammad Hasin Awad Abu-Aadra was arrested trying to infiltrate Israel through the Sinai. He confessed that he sought to implement a suicide attack in Eilat, planned by Hamas.

IsraelDefense 21/3/2012
http://www.israeldefense.com/?CategoryID=483&ArticleID=1078

Shabak released a statement that they arrested Mahammad Hasin Awad  Abu-Aadra, a Rafah resident, at the end of February, while he was attempting to infiltrate Israel through the Gaza border.

Abu-Aadra is suspected of planning to abduct an Israeli soldier, as well as planning a suicide attack in Eilat. Abu-Aadra is the son of a well-known Rafah family of Hamas operatives.

During the investigation, Abu-Aadra admitted that he escaped from Gaza to the Sinai a year ago via a tunnel, due to criminal entanglement. After several months in the Egyptian peninsula, Abu-Aadra was approached by Yunes Shluf, a Rafah resident and Hamas operative. According to Abu-Aadra, Shluf is the commander of the organization’s artillery layout and responsible for  the Hamas observation layout in the Sinai.

He asked Abu-Aadra to work for Hamas in the Sinai, carry out observations, and photograph Israeli positions along the Egyptian border with the purpose of carrying out a terror attack.

Abu-Aadra understood from Shluf that there were other elements in the Sinai conducting intelligence collection in order to carry out terror attacks backed by Hamas. Some of the operatives even received considerable sums of money for this activity.

After agreeing to work for Hamas in the Sinai, Abu-Aadra was smuggled through a tunnel by Hamas operatives.

Abu-Aadra underwent a comprehensive military debriefing in Gaza, and was informed that the purpose of the intelligence collection was for examining targets and destinations for carrying out terror attacks. He was also told that his relative, Rashdi Jama’a Mousa Abu-Aadra, a Hamas military operative, would accompany him for collecting intelligence for attacks in Sinai.

In August 2011, both of them carried out most of the observations while equipped with sophisticated cameras and a GPS device, which they used to mark the targets they observed. Local Sinai residents additionally aided them.

It should be noted that the Taba border crossing was one of the targets for which they were collecting information, with emphasis on examining the security forces and the guard stations at the crossing. The two also collected intelligence about military outposts spread out across the border with Israel, as well as several civilian targets within Israel, with emphasis on targets in the city of Eilat. Both of the men infiltrated into Israeli territory as part of their activities, with the objective of collecting better intelligence about targets and ways to reach them.

After completing the observations, Mahammad and Rashdi transferred their information to the Gaza Strip, where it was examined by senior Hamas operatives. They later received follow-up missions and precise briefings regarding the information and the targets for which they needed to collect  intelligence.

Near the end of 2011, Mahammad Abu-Aadra was asked to reach the Gaza Strip.Upon his arrival, he was taken along with Rushdi Abu-Aadra and Yunes Abu Shluf to a meeting with Ra’ed Atar, commander of Hamas’s military brigade in Rafah.

Mahammad Abu-Aadra agreed to carry out fire attacks towards military and civilian targets on the Sinai-Israel border, as well as fire rockets from Sinai towards Israel. Ra’ed Atar explained to Mahammad Abu-Aatra that the purpose of the attack would be the abduction of an Israeli soldier, and that  another attack was planned.

In the additional attack, a squad of suicide bombers would be inserted into the city of Eilat in order to carry out a suicide attack.

Mahammad Abu-Aadra admitted during his interrogation that he agreed to set up the suicide squad in Eilat. He added that Yunes Shluf told him the training of the terrorists for the suicide attack squad had been completed, and that the infrastructure for their transport had been prepared in Sinai, but they were currently waiting for the right conditions to commence the attack.

An indictment have been presented to the Be’er Sheva regional court against Abu-Aadra, on charges including: contact with foreign agents, membership in an illegal organization, conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to commit abduction, intent to harm national security, and more.