Hamas claims that Palestinian General Intelligence recruited 7 Palestinian youths for a spy mission in Turkey and to monitor Hamas operatives to help the Israeli Mossad eliminate them. • They were captured by Turkish intelligence and the affair clouded Turkey's relations with the PA.

The Hamas news agency Shihab claims in a detailed report published on social media on October 10 that the Palestinian Chief of Intelligence has created a crisis in intelligence relations between the PA and Turkey, which necessitates the intervention of President Erdogan and PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. 

On October 10, the disappearance of seven Palestinians in Turkey was reported in the official PA media and on social media. The Hamas news agency now claims, based on information it received from officers in Majed Faraj's intelligence apparatus, that Faraj is directly responsible for the disappearance of seven Palestinians in Turkey. 

The report claims that the 7 missing Palestinians are being held by the Turkish security services and being interrogated by them and that they were not abducted by criminal elements as claimed in some of the media.

They are suspected of being recruited by Majed Faraj to monitor the movements of senior Hamas figures staying in Turkey because the Israeli Mossad is having difficulty following them, due to the preventive activity of the Turkish intelligence services, in preparation for assassination operations on Turkish soil after Israel demanded several times from Turkey Expel them from its surface.

Turkish security officials also confiscated a large sum of money in Istanbul that came from the Palestinian General Intelligence Unit to fund the activities of the Palestinians recruited for the mission.

The Turkish investigation into the affair has not yet been completed, and it is unclear whether Turkey will publish the details of the investigation because of the sensitivity of the issue.

As you may recall, Hamas has an office of the military wing in Istanbul run by deportees from the "Shalit deal" and remotely directed by Saleh Al-Aruri, the head of Hamas' military wing.

Among other things, he is involved in targeting terrorist attacks in the West Bank, recruiting Palestinian students to Hamas, smuggling and money laundering, and intelligence surveillance of PA activities in the West Bank.

According to security sources in Israel, Hamas' terrorist infrastructure that was exposed two weeks ago in the West Bank was also operated from Turkey. The GSS arrested about 20 Hamas operatives, three of whom were killed in a clash with IDF forces in the village of Beit Anan in the Ramallah area, and several kilograms of explosives were hidden in a water well in preparation for terrorist attacks. Among other things, the members of the organization planned to carry out abduction attacks on Israelis in order to increase Hamas' bargaining power in negotiations on the prisoner exchange deal.