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Maya Binyamin 2

Maya Binyamin was an Israeli undercover policewoman and the sister of Hezbollah terrorist Omar Tawalbe.

Biography[]

Maya Binyamin

Binyamin posing as an Arab drug dealer

Maya Tawalbe was born in Jenin, West Bank, the daughter of former PIJ commander Ihad Tawalbe, the sister of Omar and Muhammad Tawalbe, and the cousin of Adel Tawalbe. After Maya's father betrayed his organization to the Israelis in 2002, Shin Bet captain Gabi Ayub arranged for the family to be resettled in Ramla, where he took care of them and cultivated Omar as an informant. Adel became a Palestinian Preventive Service policeman while Maya became an Israeli policewoman in 2018 after her wedding to an Israeli policeman and decorated paratrooper, Amos Binyamin. She developed an outstanding record as an undercover policewoman, receiving her unit's highest evaluation while taking part in sting operations. In 2023, she was interviewed by Shin Bet after her brother Omar was involved in the kidnapping of Ayub in Belgium; she was informed that Omar and Adel were Hezbollah members.

Maya and Aisha as hostages

Maya and Aisha as hostages

In a desperate bid to track down Omar, Shin Bet decided to use deepfakes of Omar to contact Maya via an encrypted website. Omar told Maya that he was in grave danger from Hezbollah, and that he needed her help with bringing an important package to his wife Aisha with the help of his agent Salah. Maya reluctantly agreed to retrieve a package from her mother's home and then meet with Salah at a cafe, where Salah persuaded her to join him in traveling to Fnaidek, Lebanon to save Omar and Aisha's lives. Posing as the Syrian refugees Nur and Salim al-Hamis from Daraa, they snuck past the Golan Heights border with Syria with the help of a Druze driver and passed border checkpoints into Lebanon after telling the border guards that they merely wished to settle at the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp. However, Hezbollah obtained copies of their identification documents shortly after capturing and interrogating their Druze driver, and Hezbollah leader Haj Ali identified them as Israeli spies. Omar volunteered to capture them, hoping to rescue his sister, whose identity was not known to Haj Ali. Maya and Doron were later stopped at a Hezbollah checkpoint and detained, only to murder their guards and continue on their journey to Fnaidek; when Haj Ali discovered Maya's identity, he had Omar driven back towards Beirut to answer to him. Doron and Maya then reached Fnaidek, where Maya delivered the passports to Aisha and told her of Omar's urgent situation, persuading her to take her to Omar so that they could flee the country. However, Doron crashed into their car as they were being driven to meet Omar in Beirut, and he killed the Hezbollah guards and took the two women hostage before calling Omar and telling him to meet him alone if he wished to see them alive again.

When Omar arrived, Doron took Omar captive as well, and Mossad deputy chief Rafael Leopold directed them to Nimer's Mossad safehouse. There, Omar revealed that Doron's friend, Shin Bet captain Gabi Ayub, was being held by Hezbollah in Beirut and was scheduled to be flown to Iran from Syria that same night. Taking Omar with him, and accompanied by a team of Israeli special forces, Doron was able to kill Haj Ali and rescue Ayub with Omar's help. Doron and his team then retrieved Aisha and Maya and prepared to return to Israel by helicopter, only for Ayub to steal Doron's gun and shoot Omar dead out of vengeance for his torture. Maya and Aisha were distraught at Omar's death, and, her return to Israel, Maya spurned several attempts by Doron to apologize for his deception and for her brother's death.

Days later, the Israelis decided to return Omar's body to his family as part of a ruse. Maya and her mother planned to bury Omar in a private plot, but gunmen dressed as Hamas militants stole Omar's body from the hospital, claiming that they intended to give him a hero's funeral procession. Maya and her mother attended the procession in Jenin, only for one of the Hamas militants to reveal himself to be Doron, who asked Maya to take her mother and leave before things got violent. When Adel Tawalbe and his henchmen arrived to recover Omar's body, Maya - angry at Doron for his betrayal - warned Adel that the Hamas militants were Israeli special forces, resulting in a shootout and a chase that left Adel dead and Doron and most of his teammates critically wounded.

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