Mousa Abu Marzook, the deputy head of the Hamas political bureau, referred on Thursday to the defection of a senior Hamas naval commander last week for the first time.

Marzook admitted that a Hamas “activist” defected to Israel but denied reports that he was a commander of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades’ naval commando unit, claiming that the defector was not a senior member and was not in possession of any important information that could endanger Hamas.

In an interview on the Lebanese Al-Mayadeen TV channel, Marzook said: “We arrested several collaborators with Israel but there is no connection between the people we arrested to this incident. Some media outlets noted that al-Qassam commanders have been accused of being collaborators and leaked lies about it.”

“Hamas did announce that it detained several collaborators with the ‘occupation.’ Several of them fled to the ‘occupation’ and were warmly received there and others were arrested and are currently undergoing interrogation.”

According to the report on the Saudi news outlet Al Arabiya on Tuesday, the defection caused panic and turmoil in Gaza, with some members expelled by Hamas and senior Hamas members moving out of their homes to escape detection. The defector reportedly provided Israeli security services with detailed maps of the residences of senior Hamas officials as well as missile storage sites and training bases.

Senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was reportedly one of those who changed his place of residence and is closely following the investigation of the incident.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)