Shirin al-Abed

Shirin al-Abed (1983-2018) was a French-Palestinian nurse, an occasional informant for Israeli counter-terrorism forces, and the wife and cousin of Hamas' West Bank military commander Walid al-Abed.

Biography[]

Shirin al-Abed born in 1983, the daughter of a French father from Paris and a Palestinian mother from Nablus; she was the cousin of Walid al-Abed. She studied medicine at an-Najah and attended the Ecole Medicine in France before volunteering for Doctors Without Borders in Beirut during the 2006 Second Lebanon War. That same year, she married a chemist, Naji, who died in 2010. Afterwards, she moved back to Nablus to be closer to her mother, and she worked at the Rafidia Hospital.

In 2015, her cousin contacted her to help with the moving of one of her patients, Hamas arch-terrorist Taufiq Hammed, from the hospital to a new safehouse; however, it was her boss, Dr. Abu Sharif, who would do the transfer. Nevertheless, undercover Mista'arvim operative Nurit Shimon was sent to steal her phone from the ladies' changing room at Ramallah's public pools, and, when this failed, another undercover operative, Doron Kabilio, pretended to be a patient with a concussion in order to search for Hammed at the hotel. While both efforts failed, Kabilio, pretending to be Shimon's brother, managed to obtain Shirin's number, intending on forming a relationship with her and using her for intelligence purposes. As they dated, however, Kabilio developed true romantic feelings for al-Abed. At the same time, her cousin lured her deeper into political territory by having his henchmen Bassem Sfadi and Nidal Naama take her mother Hiba hostage and forcing Shirin to perform a surgery on captured IDF soldier Boaz Capon, in which she implanted a bomb into his body. Not long after, Shirin told Kabilio, whom she was convinced was an undercover Palestinian Preventive Security officer, that she had been tricked into putting a bomb in a human body. When Hammed's intended use of Capon as a living bomb went awry, and both Capon and the Israelis' hostage Sheikh Awadalla were killed, Hammed suspected Shirin of informing the Israelis of the bomb, and he sent Sfadi and Naama to kill her. However, Kabilio had come to Shirin's apartment so that she could treat a gunshot wound he had sustained, and Kabilio was able to kill both of the terrorists after interrogating them about Hammed's location. With this new knowledge, Kabilio had Shirin taken to a nearby hotel to remain safe, but the hotel owner informed Walid of his cousin's location. Walid secretly visited Shirin's hotel room several times, promising to protect her, and even asking for her hand in marriage. She initially agreed to consider, but she later spurned him due to her lack of love for him. After Hammed's death and the foiling of his terror plot, however, Walid discovered Doron's true identity from a PPS interrogation tape that was shared with him, and he sent the video to Shirin while she was on a date with Doron. Shirin left in the middle of the date, feeling betrayed, and she cut ties with Doron.

Shirin al-Abed 3 — Shirin wearing *hijab*

With her relationship with Doron ruined, Shirin ultimately accepted Walid's offer of marriage. Over the next three years, Shirin adopted a more conservative version of Islam in line with Hamas' expectations, donning a hijab and coming to believe in its anti-Semitic rhetoric. However, after Walid partnered with the ISIL-trained terrorist Abu Seif al-Makdasi in 2018, Doron returned to being an undercover agent, and he repeatedly made contact with Shirin, attempting to persuade her to leave Walid and seek a new life. Shirin was unable to bring herself to betray her husband until Doron rekindled their old love, and she agreed to betray her husband in exchange for a French passport. Makdasi's sister-in-law Marwa Awadalla noticed Shirin having a conersation with Doron on the hotel rooftop, however, and she informed Makdasi of this; Makdasi, in turn, informed Walid.

As a Mista'arvim squad followed Shirin to a meeting with her husband in front of the Four Seasons Hotel in Ramallah, Walid and two bodyguards had Shirin enter their taxi, where Walid revealed that he knew of Shirin's duplicity, and his bodyguards ruffled through her bag and found both a French passport and a SIM card. In a murderous rage, Walid pulled a gun on his wife, eyes bulging, and he told his wife to close her eyes so that he could kill her. However, PPS policemen pulled the taxi over, and, after delaying the driver for some time, shot both bodyguards and made way for the Israelis to take al-Walid captive. Shirin was given sanctuary at a Shin Bet-owned apartment, where she resumed her old relationship with Doron, and the two later traveled to the home of Doron's father Amos Kabilio in the Negev, where she was to stay until her flight to France.

However, Makdasi discovered Amos Kabilio's home address, and, while Doron drove Shirin to the airport, he and his ISIL militants took Amos captive, warned Doron of their intentions via phone call, and beheaded him for an ISIL propaganda video. Doron, aggrieved and believing that Shirin betrayed him, lashed out at her on arriving at his father's home, and Shirin was taken back into custody. She was sent to meet with her husband in prison to extract information on Makdasi's location, but her husband grew enraged on seeing that she was wearing a necklace gifted to her by Doron. He then told her about her mother's murder and labeling as a "traitor", and he berated a crying Shirin until he was taken away. Not long after, Walid "escaped" from custody; he was kidnapped by Doron's team, interrogated about Makdasi's whereabouts, and then shot in the head.

Shirin then returned to her safehouse, where Shin Bet captain Gabi Ayub told her that her flight to France had been indefinitely postponed due to security concerns. Having lost the love of both her (late) husband and lover, and with no avenue of escape, Shirin hanged herself in her bathroom, and her body was found by Doron when he came to her apartment to apologize to her.