Khalil Dawas, a Palestinian whose remains were sent to Israel in place of a hostage in October, turned to informing for Israel while in Israeli detention, residents of Jericho’s Aqabat Jabr refugee camp theorized in discussions with The Guardian.
Dawas’s body was returned alongside the remains of three hostages, with Hamas insisting that his body belonged to an IDF soldier.
It is thought that Dawas, who joined one of the Palestinian factions in the Fatah-dominated Aqabat Jabr camp after buying a property there in 2014, was recruited by Israeli intelligence during his most recent stint in the Ofer detention center in 2020.
Dawas was held for a combined total of six and a half years in administrative detention across two separate arrests, according to Naser Shalwn, head of Aqabat Jabr camp and a board member of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club advocacy group.
Critics have claimed Israel has used the promise of work permits to manipulate Palestinians to act as informants. Authorities are also alleged to have blackmailed LGBTQ+ Palestinians into acting as informants, finding information on personal devices that are confiscated during detention.
The Palestinian man alleged to have turned to spying for Israel
Members of Palestinian terror groups said that Dawas’s behavior changed significantly after his release, and his brother noted some suspicious business practices that hinted at Israeli involvement.
“He started selling bullets,” Shalwn said. “He sold a box of ammunition in the camp for 200 shekels, when it normally cost 1,500. And that was something that began to alarm members of the resistance.”
The Guardian claimed that Israel used those selling ammunition in the West Bank as informants, utilizing the sales as a means to track who was buying weapons.
“The community of Aqabat Jabr began to doubt him…Dawas was asking unusual questions, and suspicion grew. An Israeli raid on the camp in early 2023 turned those suspicions into certainty,” he claimed.
The Palestinian Authority arrested Dawas in February 2023, according to official sources, a week after the IDF raided a Hamas cell in the Aqabat Jabr refugee camp and killed five terrorists. Dawas was released from prison in April as the PA failed to prove its allegation that he was working for Israel.
Despite no court finding him guilty, local residents reportedly distrusted Dawas, and he was abducted and tortured for hours, Shalwn claimed.
“They told him to leave Jericho and never come back. If he did, they said they would kill him,” Shalwn recounted.
Dawas’s fate following his expulsion from the camp remained largely unknown until a May 2024 video released by Hamas seemingly confirmed that Dawas was killed in a tunnel in Jabalya. The terror group claimed to have lured IDF troops into a trap, a claim the Israeli military denied.
It is unclear why Dawas was in the tunnel, and the nature of the alleged IDF operation remains unknown.
“People in the camp recognized him and tried to storm his family home,” Shalwn said. “His mother and brother came to me for help, and I urged them to issue a statement disowning him to prevent reprisals.”
A day after Dawan’s death was confirmed, his family put out a statement reading, “We affirm that what he has done does not represent us in any way, and has nothing to do with our morals or our national and religious principles.”
Sources from within the Izzadin al-Qassam, Hamas's military wing, told Qatari state-run Al Jazeera that Dawas was wearing an Israeli military uniform when he was killed.
Shalwn said that Israel had offered to retrieve Dawan’s body for his family at the time, an offer quickly rejected.
“People in the camp said that accepting and burying the body would only encourage others to follow his path. So he will not be accepted, dead or alive,” a PA official told the Guardian.