Thaindian News

London, Feb 28(ANI): Israeli President Shimon Peres is among the many who owe their lives to the son of a founder of Hamas, according to a dramatic account to be published this week.

Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef - Hamas chief since August 200, will reveal the heroics of how he became an informant for the Israeli domestic security service Shin Bet, as a top agent codenamed the ‘Green Prince’ and the risks he took during a decade as a spy for Israel. In his book, Son of Hamas, he describes his remarkable double life as a top Israeli agent, his conversion to Christianity and how he swapped the West Bank for the West Coast. The disclosure that among his activities he thwarted a 2001 plot to blow up Peres, then Foreign Minister and now the Israeli head of state, will also heighten the risk he now faces himself from potential assassins.

According to Yousef’s account, he was serving as aide and driver to his father, Sheikh Hassan Yousef, when he visited one of Hamas’ top terrorists, a deadly bomb-maker called Abdhullah Barghouti.The Hamas leader urged Barghouti to rein in his campaign of killing after two major attacks that summer in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, because he feared Israel would invade the West Bank in retaliation.However, Barghouti revealed that he had already dispatched four devices to blow up the car of Peres.

He agreed to make a call to the men now in charge of the bombs and the younger Yousef was sent to buy a new mobile phone that would be destroyed after the conversation so it could not be traced.

The Green Prince immediately passed the number to Shin Bet, which eavesdropped on the call, allowing it to foil the operation.

It was one of dozens of suicide-bombing attempts and assassination plots that he helped prevent, including a plan to kill one of Israel’s most important religious figures, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, spiritual leader of the conservative Shas party. (ANI)