The son of a senior Hamas leader, who converted to Christianity and renounced his family's Islamist background, was named by an Israeli newspaper today as Israel's most-valuable informant for more than a decade.
Mosab Hassan Yousef, 32, who moved to the US three years ago, supplied intelligence to Israel's internal security agency, the Shin Bet, that led to the capture of leading Palestinian militants and prevented suicide bombings, said Ha'aretz.
He was known by the Shin Bet as the Green Prince, because of his father's importance. The newspaper said it had spoken to Yousef ahead of the publication of his memoirs next week.
If the account is true, it suggests Israeli intelligence had penetrated Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement, to a far greater degree than thought.
Yousef has led a life distinctly unusual for the son of a Hamas official. A decade ago he converted to Christianity, at first keeping the news secret from his family, and it is not clear how closely he was ever involved in the Hamas organisation. In 2007, he moved to California and took the name Joseph.
He is the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a senior Hamas figure from the occupied West Bank who was a Palestinian MP and is now in an Israeli jail serving a six-year term. Yousef junior supplied intelligence to the Shin Bet during the height of the second intifada, the Palestinian uprising that began in late 2000, and according to Ha'aretz his information led to the arrest of two senior Hamas figures, Ibrahim Hamid and Abdullah Barghouti, as well as the influential Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti.
He was turned by Israeli agents in 1996 when he spent a year in an Israeli jail. From the moment he was released the following year he began providing information to the Shin Bet, the paper said.
It reported Yousef as saying he was ready to help the Israeli military free Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier captured in 2006 by Gazan militants and who is now being held by Hamas. "I wish I were in Gaza now," Yousef was quoted as saying. "I would put on an army uniform and join Israel's special forces to liberate Gilad Shalit. If I were there, I could help. We wasted so many years with investigations and arrests to capture the very terrorists that they now want to release in return for Shalit. That must not be done."
In the interview he speaks openly of his criticisms of Hamas. "Hamas cannot make peace with the Israelis. That is against what their god tells them. It is impossible to make peace with infidels, only a ceasefire, and no one knows that better than I. The Hamas leadership is responsible for the killing of Palestinians, not Israelis."
In his book, Yousef names his Israeli handler as Captain Loai.
The handler, who was not fully identified, was quoted by Ha'aretz as confirming Yousef's account.
"So many people owe him their life and don't even know it," he said. "He did things he believed in. He wanted to save lives. His grasp of intelligence matters was just as good as ours – the ideas, the insights."