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Yousef insisted that Israel and the international community cannot repeat the mistakes of the past by letting Hamas “get away with their crime.”
Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of Hamas co-founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef, who later defected from the terror group and worked undercover with Israel’s Shin Bet security service, has warned world leaders against granting legitimacy to a Palestinian state while Hamas remains entrenched.
In an interview with ILTV, arranged by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, Yousef said that the October 7 Hamas massacre, despite his intimate knowledge of the organization, shocked even him.
“I never thought they would just invade and commit a genocide against the Jewish people,” he said, not because he believed Hamas was incapable of such barbarism but because he assumed they understood that by attempting a “modern-day Holocaust” against Israel, “Hamas signed their death sentence.”
Yousef insisted that Israel and the international community cannot repeat the mistakes of the past by letting Hamas “get away with their crime.”
He argued that Western leaders considering Palestinian statehood at the United Nations are “totally mistaken” and would be “compromising Israel’s security while legitimizing terrorists.”
The former insider also pushed back on the widely held belief that Hamas is solely a product of so-called “Israeli occupation,” describing it instead as an ideology rooted in religious extremism.
He characterized Palestinian society as steeped in a culture of violence and indoctrination that prioritizes martyrdom over life.
Yousef, who secretly worked with Shin Bet from the late 1990s, said his cooperation helped foil attacks and dismantle Hamas cells.
He admitted he once urged security officials to arrest rather than assassinate terrorists but, in hindsight, believes some who were released later contributed to further bloodshed.
Turning to Gaza’s present, Yousef said the situation has become “almost irreversible” and that the failure to condemn Hamas from its inception emboldened its leaders.
Despite his grim warnings, Yousef voiced hope that humanity will ultimately reject Hamas’s manipulation of civilian suffering.
“There is no mother who does not feel sorry for children’s suffering,” he said, “but the blame lies with those who sacrifice children for political agendas.”
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