Arrested senior Hamas commander urges fellow terrorists to surrender or face death

A commander in Hamas’ elite Nukhba Brigade, who recently surrendered to Israeli forces in Khan Younis, urged remaining Hamas terrorists to surrender or risk facing death.

"I recommend everyone surrender, your fate is to die," Muhammad Nasir Suleiman Abu-Namr said during a conversation with Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency.

Abu-Nam, who is sometimes referred to as Abu al-Baraa, recalled that he and his colleagues – Hamis Saafi and Iyad al-Astal – jointly decided to surrender to IDF forces while hiding in a tunnel deep below the southern Gazan city of Khan Younis, a major Hamas stronghold. At the time, the three terrorists were armed with explosives, RPGs and guns and surrendered without any resistance.

"We came to the decision that we don't want to fight and as soon as the army comes we will turn ourselves in," Al-Baraa said.

"We sat in the room, we put all the weapons outside, outside the room. And the army came and took all the weapons. We sat and waited. When the army arrived, we raised our hands and surrendered," he added.

Hamas’ Nukhba forces played a leading role in the terror group's invasion and attack on Israel, which resulted in the massacre of at least 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7. Since then, the Israeli military has devoted significant resources to capturing and eliminating Nukhba terrorist operatives in the Gaza Strip.

In early January, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) eliminated senior Hamas commander Ismail Siraj and his deputy, Ahmad Wahba. Siraj had previously served as a Nukhba commander and was involved in the Iranian-backed group’s rocket production unit.

Siraj and Wahba were both reportedly responsible for the slaughter of about 130 Israelis at Kibbutz Be’eri, a rural Israeli community adjacent to the Gaza Strip border. Many other Nukhba terrorists and commanders have been either killed or captured since October 7.

Mosab Hassan Yousef, a son of a founding Hamas leader with intimate knowledge of the terror organization, stressed that Hamas is driven by Jihad or “holy war” against Jews and other “infidels.”

After being imprisoned in Israel, Yousef left Hamas, became a Christian and later worked with Israeli intelligence under the code name “Green Prince.” He visited the Jewish state this week, including some of the southern Israeli communities where Hamas terrorists murdered countless Israeli civilians, including children, women and elderly Holocaust survivors.

Yousef, who is no longer in contact with his imprisoned father, demanded an end to jihad.

“The concept of jihad must be stopped and it must be stopped now,” Yousef stated.

“Hamas does not care about people. In effect, they are sacrificing the lives of children and non-combatants in order to achieve cheap political goals.”

Yousef believes the Oct. 7 terror attack should be seen in the wider context of systematic indoctrination of anti-Israel and antisemitic Jew-hatred being disseminated in schools, mosques and elsewhere.

“In the mosques, the schools, the streets, and at home, everywhere you go, there is hatred of Israel and of the Jewish people,” Yousef said.

He concluded that Hamas leaders should be removed from human society and urged the wider Arab world to pay attention to the dangers of ignoring Islamist extremism.

“The people that wrote the Hamas Covenant are a bunch of lunatics. They aren’t fit to be part of any human society. The Arab world needs to pay attention to the dangers within,” Yousef said.