Iyad al-Bazam, a spokesman for the interior ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza, claimed on Thursday that Israeli "agents" had recently turned themselves into security officials who had handled the matter secretly. Speaking with Hamas's official Palestine newspaper, al-Bazam said that after the assassination of senior Hamas terrorist Mazen Faqha, the security forces in Gaza carried out a campaign to expose collaborators with Israel, in which 45 agents were arrested throughout the region. He warned against the methods used by Israeli intelligence which, he claimed, tries to recruit agents through social networks. In a direct appeal to Gazans, al-Bazam asked them to report to local authorities any information about suspicious activity that might be related to the transfer of information to Israel. Faqha, a convicted terrorist released in the 2011 Shalit deal, was shot by unknown assailants in his Gaza home on March 24. Hamas authorities in Gaza immediately accused Israel of being behind his death, and threatened to get Israel back for any action by Israeli security forces against Hamas senior officials. Last week, Hamas executed three men who were found guilty of killing Faqha.
