The Beersheba District Court on Wednesday sentenced Shahadah Abu al-Qi’an, a resident of an unrecognized Bedouin village in the Negev, to 24 and a half years in prison for working on behalf of a Gaza terror organization, which included enlisting in the IDF on its instructions to gather intelligence from inside the army.
Abu al-Qi’an was convicted in December 2025 under a plea agreement of aiding the enemy in wartime, active membership in a terror organization, aggravated theft, weapons offenses and operating weapons for terror purposes. Along with the prison term, Judges Daniel Ben Tulila, Tal Lahiani Shaham and Yoav Atar imposed a suspended sentence and a fine of 25,000 shekels.
According to the amended indictment, Abu al-Qi’an decided in 2019 to take revenge on the State of Israel after an administrative demolition order was issued for his father’s house. That September, he stole an M4 rifle, a magazine and a laser marker from an IDF soldier in the Yatir area and buried them near his home.
From 2021, he was in contact with Gaza-based terror operatives through social media and Telegram. He expressed support for the struggle against Israel, asked to join Hamas’s military wing, and later worked for the Kata’ib al-Mujahideen group. He sent his handlers information and photos of IDF bases, train stations, government companies and shopping centers, and reported on the movements of soldiers and helicopters near his home.
In March 2022, an operative known as “Abu Suleiman” asked to buy weapons from him. Abu al-Qi’an offered the rifle he had stolen and insisted on delivering it directly to Judea and Samaria. In May 2022, he and a cousin he recruited drove the M4, thousands of rounds of ammunition and five hand grenades there and left them in a hiding place for the group.
At the same time, on his handler’s instructions, Abu al-Qi’an enlisted in the IDF on May 22, 2022, intending to collect information on Bedouin soldiers, bases and military locations. He was arrested about eight days later.
In its sentencing arguments, the prosecution stressed the severity of his ties to Kata’ib al-Mujahideen, which it said was involved in the murder of the Bibas family during the war.
“This is a case of exceptional severity, in which a citizen of the State of Israel chose to act against it, to maintain contact with a terror organization, and even to enlist in the IDF on behalf of a terror organization,” said attorney Hofit Kantrowitz of the Southern District Prosecutor’s Office, who handled the case.
Kantrowitz added that Abu al-Qi’an’s details have been passed to the interior minister to consider revoking his citizenship. “The sentence handed down reflects the severity of the acts, the harm to state security, and the need for significant deterrence,” she said.
