Suhir Ayoub, an Arab-Israeli attorney in Akko, was indicted by the Jerusalem District Attorney’s office for serving as a go-between for members of the Mahajat El Quds terror organization incarcerated in Israel’s prisons and their leader, A’amar A’ashur Abu Hamza, in Gaza.

The Mahajat El Quds organization is closely linked to the Islamic Jihad.

According to the indictment Ayoub was retained by Abu Hamza, a Mahajat El Quds member, to pass on information to the group’s members serving sentences in Israeli prisons.

According to the indictment Suhir gained access to the prisoners on two occasions in February and April under the guise of counsel, representing herself as the inmates’ lawyer. During her visits, Suhir is alleged to have taken down messages from the prisoners pertaining to Mahajat El Quds business, and then having distributed them among the other prisoners. She also allegedly transferred messages to Abu Hamza in Gaza.

Suhir is being charged under a section of the Defense (Emergency) Regulations that prohibits giving aid to an illegal association. As a result, prosecutors requested Suhir be remanded for the duration of the proceedings against her, arguing she poses a danger to public and national security.

The judge ordered house arrest for Suhir. Her license to practice law has been suspended.

In a related announcement, the Israel Police Central District said it arrested three other lawyers in northern Israel for passing information to terror organizations. The lawyers, police said, received thousands of shekels in fees for the illicit services.

Avi Cohen of the Jerusalem District Police said the four lawyers were arrested after an undercover investigation spanning several months. The other three lawyers are expected to be indicted shortly.

“We believe they will be indicted within a week,” said Cohen. “We also know that this is not a singular case and that Islamic Jihad has other ways of contacting their members in Israeli prisons. Nevertheless, the arrests are likely to increase deterrence to that effect.”

Lt.-Col. (ret.) Meir Indor of Almagor, the Terror Victims Association, said of Suhir’s arrest, “The frequent visits by lawyers to convicted terrorists has become a national plague.

“These visits have nearly nothing to do with the requirement of legal representation,” Indor observed, “… it has become clear that they are an effective method designed by the terror organizations to enable the relay of messages between organization heads and operatives, many of them having to do with operational orders about terror attacks.”

A’amar A’ashur Abu Hamza should not be confused with Abu Hamza al-Masri who is being held by British authorities in Belmarsh prison pending extradition by US authorities.

Islamic Jihad terrorists in Gaza City (Photo: REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa)

An Acre-based lawyer was charged on Wednesday with aiding a terrorist organization.

Suhir Ayoub stands accused by the Jerusalem District Attorney’s office of relaying information between a Gaza-based leader of Mahajat El Kuds, a group with close links to Islamic Jihad, and members of the group being held in Israeli jails.

According to the indictment, Ayoub was hired by Mahajat El Kuds operative A’amar A’ashur Abu Hamza to pass on the information. It stated that on two occasions in February and April, she gained access to the prisoners by wrongfully representing herself as their lawyer, and during these visits she took down messages from the prisoners on matters relating to the organization and forwarded them to Abu Hamza in Gaza.

The prosecution requested that Ayoub be placed under arrest until the end of legal proceedings, arguing that she posed a danger to public and national security. She is being charged with violating a section of the Defense (Emergency) Regulations that prohibit the provision of aid to an illegal organization.

Central District police said they had arrested three other lawyers based in the north on similar suspicions of passing information to a terror organization in return for thousands of shekels in legal fees.

In response to the arrests, the terror victims group Almagor called on the Justice Ministry, the Prisons Service and military prosecutors to reconsider their policy on allowing lawyers to visit terrorists in prison.

“The frequent visits by lawyers to convicted terrorists have become a national plague,” said Meir Indor.“These visits have nearly nothing to do with the requirement of legal representation and it has become clear that they are an effective method designed by the terror organizations to enable the relay of messages between organization heads and operatives, many of them having to do with operational orders about terror attacks,”

Attorney Dror Arad-Ayalon, chairman of the Israel Bar Association’s ethics board, said a lawyer’s commitment to a client does not allow him or her to take part in the client’s illegal activities, and that lawyers must be careful not to cross the line between representation and participation.

“There are grey areas as to what constitutes participation in a client’s activities, but the principle is very firm and well established,” said Arad- Ayalon.

He added that in the past there had been lawyers charged with participating in their clients’ activities, for example by transferring drugs or cash to prisoners, but very few convictions.

“The bar association provides widespread protection when it comes to legitimate representation, but strongly condemns lawyers who cross the line and engage in illegal activity,”he said, stressing that there was no difference if the activity was criminal or security related.

Responding to Almagor’s statement, Arad-Ayalon warned against compromising people’s basic rights because of individual cases where lawyers themselves run afoul of the law.

“If we take away rights every time someone wrongfully takes advantage of them, we will be left with a society void of rights,” Arad-Ayalon said.

(Flash 90)

The Almagor Terror Victims Association published an open letter on Thursday to the six former high-ranking security officials who earlier this week urged Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to give in to Hamas’ demands for the release of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit. The six, which include former Shin Bet heads Ami Ayalon, Karmi Gilon and Yaakov Perry, former Mossad head Danny Yatom, retired police major-general Alik Ron and Yom Kippur War hero Brig.-Gen. (res.) Avigdor Kahalani, urged Netanyahu to include terrorist murderers in the deal.

The six former security officials told reporters that a military operation to free Shalit is not possible and that Israel will be able to withstand the aftermath of a deal for Shalit.

The response letter, which was written by Almagor board member Dr. Aryeh Bachrach, whose son and his friend were killed by terrorists while on a hike, reads as follows:

On the 30th day since the slaughter in Itamar, I and my fellow active bereaved members of Almagor, who are acting against the release of terrorists, are calling on those senior government and security officials who called this week to release terrorists and make a deal with Hamas: Stop!

In the past you were partners to gestures and deals in which terrorists were released. You did not pay the price for those deals, but rather our loved ones did. You won’t pay for the risk you called to take this week, but Israeli families like ours will.

Stop with your repeated suggestions that not only bring up for us the memories of your past failures, but also encourage Hamas and frighten us about the future.

Here is the math: 183 Israelis have lost their lives since 2000 by terrorists who were released. Many others died in the years before that, including by terrorists released in the Jibril deal, which is the exact same deal as what you are offering now. There are many who were murdered and whose names we do not know, since their stories are hidden in the ISA interrogation files and have not been made public.

A notable exception is the two released Fatah terrorists who murdered Zehava Ben Ovadia and Paul Appleby after being released as part of the Jibril deal. They will again be released if G-d forbid your recommendation is accepted.

And we still have not talked about the 1,000 victims of the 2000 intifada who were murdered—though indirectly—in a very organized manner by former prisoners of Hamas and Fatah, among them Barghouti (Fatah) and Sheikh Yassin (Hamas).

Yassin was also released on the recommendation of some of you, in exchange for two security men detained in Jordan, with an evaluation that he is a disabled man and is thus not dangerous.

At that time you said, as you do now, that if he acts against us we will act against him, but until we were able to kill him, he initiated and commanded from his wheelchair a slew of mass terror attacks which killed and wounded hundreds of Israelis.

Barghouti is in prison a third time—after previous arrests and releases – and again is a candidate for release in your eyes.

We urge you to not only look at what’s popular, populistic and publicized, but rather at the whole picture, and the whole picture, if G-d forbid the Prime Minister answers your call, will be bleak.

On the 30th day since the murder of the Fogel family, we ask you to look into the future. What will happen if these terrorists, these predators, are released from their cages? All the deterrence that we created after the arrests and killings in recent years—after you left your posts – will be destroyed and what happened a month ago in Itamar may become a tsunami of terror. The images of the mass terror attacks will come back and chaos will rule our streets again.

We who already paid the price, some of us during your time in office, call to you—stop!

Let us beat Hamas rather than submit to it. We tried your methods and they brought us nothing but bereavement and grief. Now we hope to wage a struggle against terror and not to conduct dialogue with it.

We hope that the soldiers and their commanders persist in this struggle and that we will not be subject to interference from within, as was the case last week.

Sincerely,

Dr. Aryeh Bachrach and 100 bereaved families

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu responded earlier this week to the call by the former security officials and said that any deal for Gilad Shalit’s release must not endanger other Israelis.

“The actions to bring First Sgt. Gilad Shalit home safe and sound continue all the while,” the PMO said. “It has been more than a year since Israel presented Hamas with its latest offer in the negotiations, but Hamas has yet to respond to this offer. This shows that the other side has no intention of successfully concluding the negotiations.”

The PMO added that “Beside the great commitment to bring Gilad back quickly, the Prime Minister is also responsible for the security and safety of all the citizens of Israel. Past experience teaches us that dozens of Israelis were murdered in terror attacks perpetrated by terrorists who were freed in previous deals, such as the Jibril deal and the Tenenbaum deal. The Prime Minister insists adamantly that any deal reached not endanger the citizens of Israel.”

The Almagor umbrella group of terror-victim groups called on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Tuesday, to reject, out of hand, the demand made Monday by six senior members of the security establishment to accept the Hamas terror organization’s demand to free a thousand security prisoners in exchange for the release of abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Almagor said, in a statement, “These men failed in the past through the release of terrorists and other mistaken security conceptions which sprouted terror and its victims to monstrous proportions, and they must not explain to us what to do now. The price in blood of releases is known, and it would be pure anarchy to respond positively to Hamas.”

The Prime Minister’s Office responded Monday night to the demands of the security man by blaming Hamas for not responding to Israel’s last offer on Shalit. The statement noted the murders of dozens of Israelis by terrorists who were released and said Netanyahu will not approve a deal that endangers Israel.

Almagor, Terror Victims Association, calls out to Social Security and the Government of Israel not to recognize the murder of Juliano Mar in Jenin as an act of terrorism.

Almagor CEO, Meir Indor said, “In the last few years, Juliano Mar has chosen to work in Jenin – an area defined as “A”, under complete Palestinian rule, off-limits to Israeli citizens. His choice in entering Jenin shows contempt of Israeli law and therefore there is no logical basis in recognizing him as a terror victim according to Israeli law.