Dichter: Israel must jail Samhadana
In Ynet interview, former Shin Bet chief outlines rocket chief's life as criminal, arms smuggler and murderer hired by Hamas
"We at the Shin Bet used to say, 'he is considered dead, all that's left is to kill him,'" he said.
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas vetoed the appointment, saying it violated previous laws.
Dichter has known Samhadana since the says he worked as the Shin Bet coordinator in the Gaza Strip, and later as head of the southern district and as the Shin Bet chief. In the interview, he outlined the path of "the little criminal" from a smuggler at the Egyptian border to the rank of a terror attack contractor.
Among his other crimes, Samhadana was responsible for the murder of five members of the Hatuel family.
"The Samhadana family is a known criminal family from Rafah. At the time, his brother Sami was much more familiar than Jamal. The family members were involved in any possible type of criminality in the Gaza Strip and were mainly known for working as smugglers at the Egypt-Gaza Strip border," Dichter said.
"Sometimes they worked in collaboration with Bedouins and other criminals in the Negev. They stole anything that moved and could be stolen. Simultaneously, they were also involved in the areas of hostile terrorist activities, as Tanzim-Fatah members," he added.
According to Dichter, "as part of the chaos in the Palestinian Authority with the breakout of the intifada on September 2000, they took advantage of the situation to smuggle weapons from Sinai to Rafah and sell them in the Gaza Strip to the highest bidder. Then they also began carrying out terror attacks, while establishing the organization called the Popular Resistance Committees."
Paid for each nationalistic murder
"This group was at first connected to the Lebanese Hizbullah and served as a paid contractor of murderous terror attacks. They operated in the Gaza Strip, just like the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades operated in the West Bank, and were paid for each nationalistic murder they carried out," he added.
According to the former Shin Bet chief, Samhadana's people "had no ideology, apart from the financial issue, being paid for murders. This turned them into murder contractors across the Gaza Strip, developing from Rafah up north. They were involved in shooting attacks, launching mortar shells and Qassams, and placing several explosive devices under IDF tanks, killing six or seven soldiers."
"They began working more for Hamas and less for Hizbullah, and continued to smuggle weapons from Sinai into the Gaza Strip and selling them to the highest bidder. They serve Hamas, which serves the fundamentalistic terror coming from Iran," Dichter charged.
So why was Samhadana appointed now as the PA Interior Ministry director-general, a senior role which controls the security organizations?
"It is now payment time, and the Hamas government is paying him for the services he provided as a murder contractor and the work he did for them in the Popular Resistance Committees. I assume that his appointment is a counterweight to the appointment of Fatah's Rashid Abu Shabak by Abbas as head of the security organizations."
According to Dichter, another important point is the Samhadana family's historical affiliation with Fatah.
"It serves the new Hamas government's public relations, in a bid to show an alleged consensus between the different factions. But in any event, Jamal Abu Samhadana remains a hired murdered," he said.
"I don’t know whether he meets the criteria of a targeted assassination, because I am connected to intelligence sources nowadays. What is certain is that if we manage to lay our hands on him, he should be put behind bars," Dichter concluded.
