Drugs, sexual blackmail: shocking confession letter exposes Israel’s Red Crescent spy ring

By Kit Klarenberg and Jonathan Urmeneta

A bombshell confession letter obtained by The Grayzone reveals Israeli intelligence recruited an asset in the Palestinian Red Crescent, who admitted using drugs and sexual blackmail to create a “network of informants” which could infiltrate and destroy resistance groups.

A leaked confession indicates the Red Crescent was infiltrated by Israeli intelligence, which exploited its collaborator network within the Occupied Palestinian Territories to engage in criminal activity including drug trafficking, shocking acts of sexual blackmail, and political executions.

The document was obtained by The Grayzone, which verified its authenticity through two West Bank sources with knowledge of the case. Originally published by the State of Palestine Public Prosecution, the letter shines a light on the inner workings of Tel Aviv’s espionage network inside the West Bank, revealing how resistance groups are infiltrated and monitored, while common Palestinians are press-ganged into serving the apartheid state.

The confession traces the story of a longstanding Palestinian collaborator within the Red Crescent who was originally recruited by Israel in December 2004, following “security incidents” across the West Bank during the height of the Second Intifada.

At this time, the Palestinian visited an Israeli “field interrogation center” established near their home. Struggling financially as the primary breadwinner in a fatherless family, they were considered an ideal recruit by Israel’s intelligence services. The Grayzone has omitted the identities of the Palestinians named in the confession letter.

In the letter, the Palestinian collaborator recounted speaking to an operative identifying themselves as “Captain Ibrahim.”

“Given my work in medical relief, I was familiar with all the activists and wanted persons, and therefore I should cooperate with him and Israeli intelligence,” the accused collaborator wrote. Ibrahim appeared to know about his precarious financial situation, offering him a “generous” payoff in return for cooperation.

Successfully wooed by a combination of “profit” and “conveniences and… benefits,” the Palestinian agreed, despite knowing his actions were “neither ethical nor patriotic” and would amount to “treasonous collaboration with the Israelis, and that nothing justifies [that].”

He was given a “ghost” phone for contacting Captain Ibrahim. His initial tasking was relatively mundane – “to collect information about resistance activists among the Palestinians and those who fire at Israeli forces or anyone carrying a firearm.” He received 500 shekels for each piece of information. His Red Crescent position provided a steady flow of invaluable information, and “there was a direct response… from the Israeli army and its intelligence” whenever he alerted Captain Ibrahim.

“Because I was a volunteer in relief work at the time and, being local, I was able to know many faction activists and follow them, the first pieces of information concerned monitoring the locations where activists gathered, their activities, their identities and their movements,” the agent testified. “There were… people who provided me with information in good faith, without knowing my true intentions – among them a woman living in an area in eastern Nablus that frequently witnesses security incidents.”

Due to his success in “providing information,” the Palestinian collaborator’s responsibilities began to grow. After four months, Ibrahim introduced him to an Israeli spy codenamed “Suzy,” who “carried out intelligence work under the cover of being a coordinator for foreign volunteers who visit Nablus to provide humanitarian aid and relief.”

A source familiar with “Suzy” has informed The Grayzone that she is a US citizen. Her meeting with the Palestinian agent drew him into a long-running conspiracy to recruit further vulnerable assets, identify assassination targets, and even personally assassinate resistance fighters.

Sexual blackmail enables Israeli assassinations

In the course of their collaboration, the Palestinian guided Suzy “to the places where activists, shooters, and houses of those wanted by the Israelis gathered,” so she could “accompany Israeli forces when they carried out operations against them,” including arrests and assassinations. Her Red Crescent role, he wrote, provided perfect cover for espionage work, allowing her to enter “wanted persons’ homes” under the guise of “providing assistance to them and their families.”

He and Suzy also constructed a “network of informants by luring and recruiting young men and women… whose living conditions were poor or who had sexual inclinations.” The pair “established sexual relationships with some and lured others with money.” Suzy, the man said, constructed a dedicated space at Red Crescent’s Nablus headquarters, equipped with “cameras for filming,” where she and the Palestinian asset would engage in sexual activities with targets.

Having been compromised, the victims “were forced to cooperate with us,” the accused collaborator wrote. Those who refused were “threatened with exposure,” the letter states.

Together, the Red Crescent agent and Suzy “brought down [or] compromised more than sixteen young men and women” from Nablus, Bethlehem and Hebron until 2019. “The outcome of these recruitment and entrapment operations was the establishment of a considerable number of young men and women used either to provide information or to distribute drugs on behalf of the Israeli intelligence,” he stated.

A woman from Nablus was targeted for sexual blackmail “through volunteer committees.” The Palestinian agent “provided her with assistance and established a sexual relationship with her,” recording “sexual phone calls between us.” This particular relationship proved pivotal in the supply of intelligence that assisted Israel’s liquidation of an Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades commander in April 2007. “Due to her proximity to his residence and her ability to monitor him closely without arousing suspicion,” the agent was able to provide “immediate, up-to-date information about his hiding place.” (Western media reported Israel’s killing of two Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades figures during a raid in Nablus in April 2007).

The commander “was targeted by a ground force and there was an armed clash that led to his death.” The agent received 9500 shekels for his role in the operation, now equivalent to around $3000 USD.

Later that year, the Palestinian collaborator was given an identical sum for an operation which ended with him personally executing two Palestinian fighters, he wrote. Though “the mission began with gathering information about them and monitoring their movements,” it took an ominous turn when an intermediary appeared and provided him with an improvised explosive device, along with instructions for deploying it.

Having known “exactly what time” his Israeli handlers’ targets would arrive, the collaborator deposited the IED – set to detonate within 15 minutes of activation – before returning home.

After the explosion, he said he ran to the site “under the pretext that I was from that neighborhood and a volunteer first responder with the medical relief.” The two fighters were killed along with their entourage, the agent stated.

Palestinian media has documented numerous incidents of Israeli shooting and bombing of Palestinian resistance figures in Nablus throughout late 2007.

Funding Palestinian beauty salons for drug dealing

The recordings obtained by The Grayzone reveal how Israeli intelligence sought to compromise and/or recruit “as many salon and hairdressing owners as possible, or even young women,” with a specific focus on “divorcees and widows and anyone in a vulnerable situation to be exploited.” In order to cultivate “a strong, wide intelligence network” within the local industry, Tel Aviv began hosting secret “training courses for interested women” working in hotels and beauty salons in the Occupied Territories.

Beauty shows were organized and aid and grants distributed to get more Palestinians involved in the trade. Eventually, women introduced through these networks were recruited as informants.

As heard in the confession, “the aim of this new group” was to source information from the salons’ customers, while distributing “prohibited substances” – drugs – which were “smuggled from Jordan.” The agent oversaw the transfer of these illicit substances over the Israeli-Jordan border in coordination with Jordanian beauty salon owners, assisted by both sides’ intelligence services.

Collaborating with Israel for a carton of cigarettes

Over the years, Israeli security forces have recruited tens of thousands of Palestinians from the territories to work as collaborators, using a variety of methods that violate international law, including extortion and blackmail. In targeting Palestinians dependent on social services offered by the occupation, Israeli authorities set their sights on a Palestinian from Nablus named Zouheir Ghalit.

In a leaked video, Ghalit revealed how Israeli intelligence recruited and deployed him as an informant and operational asset:

Zouheir Ghalit: My name is Zouheir Khalil Zouheir Ghalit from the Old City of Nablus. I was connected with Israelis via a video. They asked me to go down to Huwara for an interview. I went down to Huwara. I communicated with the captain who is called Anwar. I went to him and he told me that I had a mission. My first mission. “What is the mission” I asked. We talked for a while.”

“He explained that I must locate and spy on The Chechen. And the men with Al Dakhil and Ashraf. Their whole focus was on The Chechen [an apparent resistance fighter from Nablus]. Where he goes and where he stays. I tracked him many times. The last time he was at the Grand Mosque next to the fountain. I called the officer and relayed the whereabouts to him. He rewarded me with a carton of cigarette packets. Someone called me and told me to go to Israel. I said I’ll go to look for work and I went.”

“I met the officer and he explained that I have a second mission. He told me I have to locate the path of Saleh Al Azizi. To find out who he walks around with in the neighborhood and where he goes. I spied according to instructions. I watched doors, windows, alleys, and CCTV cameras. I watched the doors and windows to see who is coming and going. I did that for two weeks.”

“I was asked to go to Israel once more. They took me to the Huwara military base. There they told me of my new mission to infiltrate the home of Saleh Al Azizi. May he rest in peace. We went to a deserted area. The IDF came and blindfolded me. They put me in a jeep and took me Huwara military base. A while passed. Then they raided Saleh Al Azizi’s neighborhood. They made me wear their same special forces uniform.”

“Their mission was to eliminate Abu Saleh Al Azizi and Aboud Sobh. My mission was to identify their targets for them. They took me and put me in a [freezer] and raided the neighborhood. I went out as they started engaging. I was able to identify through the windows and the doors. I identified with detail and then they returned me to the Jeep. They kept me in the Jeep for two to three hours as they finished their engagement and eliminated the targets. They took me from the Jeep and into the house. They gave me a phone and some of the items they had confiscated. And then back to the Jeep.”

Interrogator: They made you look for the items in the home?

Zouheir Ghalit: They made me look around the sofas in the home.

Interrogator: What did you do with the items?

Zouheir Ghalit: They gave me two phones and [unintelligible]. They returned me to the Jeep and we went back to the military base. They were laughing, joking, and drinking. My sole mission was to identify the targets. Once their mission was done, they gave me 500 Shekels and a carton of Marlboro cigarettes and my mission ended.

Destroying Palestinian society from within

According to a 1994 report by the Israeli human rights group, B’tselem, “collaborators, especially those who were armed, frequently used violence against other Palestinians, whether as part of their duties as collaborators or for personal motives.”

Many of the practices conducted by Israeli security to “recruit collaborators, such as pressure, threats, extortion, and granting of services or permits conditional on assistance to the authorities” are prohibited under international law, constituting human rights violations. The same can be said for the actions carried out by “agents of the state.”

Since its occupation of Palestine in 1948, Israeli intelligence has been known to exploit any potential weaknesses among the indigenous population. For the Shin Bet and other Israeli agencies, the easiest targets have been Palestinians who are struggling financially, those who desperately need permits to travel abroad for medical purposes, or those who are discovered to be gay.

In Gaza and the occupied West Bank, those found to be collaborating with Israel are often met with swift – and sometimes final – punishment.

The Grayzone spoke to a West Bank source who indicated that the unnamed collaborator who authored the confession is currently being held by the Palestinian Authority. Another source stated that the other accused collaborator, Zouheir Ghalit, is no longer alive. The Grayzone could not confirm the fate of either man.