Taufiq Hammed

Taufiq Mustafa Hammed (died 2015), also known as Abu Ahmad, was a Palestinian Hamas commander and arch-terrorist who was responsible for the deaths of 116 Israeli men, women, and children in suicide bombings. In 2015, he planned to execute Operation al-Buraq, a sarin gas attack on a Jewish synagogue that would bring about an Israeli retaliation against the Gaza Strip anticipated to be so harsh that Islamic countries like Iran would be forced to militarily intervene on the side of Hamas and destroy the Zionist state. Hammed's plot was foiled by the Mista'arvim counter-terrorism force and Hammed himself killed by his right-hand man Walid al-Abed under orders from Hamas political leader Abu Samara, but the concept of a surprise, mass-casualty attack on Israel with the objective of provoking harsh retaliation and then Iranian-led regional escalation was implemented as "Operation Al-Aqsa Flood" in 2023.

Biography[]

Taufiq Hammed was born in Silwad, West Bank, the son of Abu Taufiq, the nephew of Abu Khalil, and the older brother of Bashir Hammed. He joined Hamas at a young age, with Ali Karmi raising him as his own son. Hammed, using the kunya Abu Ahmad, became a feared terrorist, acquiring the nickname "the Panther" among Israelis; he also married Nassrin. Hammed's activities resulted in the deaths of 116 Israelis in suicide bombings, making him the single deadliest terrorist in Israeli history.

In 2013, he faked his death to shake off the IDF's Mista'arvim unit, only to resurface 18 months later when Ali Karmi was kidnapped by the Israelis and offered better medical treatment for his daughter in exchange fro giving up the name of the man behind an upcoming terrorist attack the Israelis had caught wind of. Hammed's nemesis Doron Kabilio was taken out of retirement to assist with taking down Hammed for good, and a team of Mista'arvim operatives planned to assassinate Taufiq at his brother's wedding, where he was expected to make a surprise appearance. Before Hammed arrived, however, Kabilio and his fellow agent Eli Daniel were detected by Abu Khalil and Amjad Abu Khalef, resulting in a rushed escape and shootout that left Bashir and Amjad dead and Daniel wounded. As the Israeli agents escaped, Doron noticed Hammed running down the street, and he was able to graze him with a gunshot wound before Hammed escaped. Hammed once again faked his death, traveling to the Rafidia Hospital in Nablus; while he broke some bones and lost a lot of blood, he survived his wounds.

Over the next several days, Hammed went from safehouse to safehouse as he recovered, with Dr. Abu Sharif treating him at the Rafidia Hospital before accompanying him to his next hideout in Nablus. The Mista'arvim team nearly captured him on several occasions, even using their informant Ali Karmi to track Hammed down to a meeting, only for Hammed to capture the Israeli operative Boaz Capon and execute Karmi upon realizing his duplicity. The Mista'arvim team went rogue and used illegal methods to try and recover Capon, kidnapping Sheikh Awadalla and Taufiq's daughter Abir and proposing a prisoner exchange of 50 prisoners for Boaz. However, Taufiq had Boaz injected with a bomb before the exchange, as he demanded that Defense Minister Gideon Avital be in attendance to oversee it. Upon learning from Walid al-Abed that the Israelis brought Awadalla and Abir rather than Awadalla and 50 prisoners, Taufiq ordered for Boaz to be blown up, causing Kabilio to detonate Awadalla's suicide vest, while a wounded Abir was taken to Israel's Hadassah Hospital. Taufiq was forced to relocate from his hideout in Ramallah's Maysoun neighborhood to the Yassmin neighborhood in Nablus' old city, where he decided to interview suicide bombers for his 9/11-style "Operation al-Buraq" terrorist plot. He ordered the death of Walid's cousin Shirin al-Abed, the doctor who planted the bomb in Boaz, after suspecting her of informing the Israelis about the bomb, but his henchmen Nidal Naama and Bassem Sfadi were killed by Kabilio, who had gone undercover and seduced Shirin.

Meanwhile, Kabilio, using another alias, infiltrated Hammed's cell by using a passcode that Bassem had given him. Pretending to have lost his brother-in-law to an Israeli bomb, Kabilio made a convincing case for his motives for becoming a shahid, leading Walid al-Abed to recommend him to Taufiq himself. Taufiq went ahead with planning his "al-Buraq" operation with his uncle Abu Khalil as financier (and supplier of sarin nerve gas) and Kabilio as the suicide bomber. Hammed planned to bomb a synagogue with sarin gas to provoke Israel into launching such a savage retaliation that Islamic powers such as Iran would be compelled to respond, resulting in an all-out Middle Eastern war and the destruction of Israel, no matter the casualties.

However, al-Abed learned from the Palestinian Preventive Security office that a man he had suspected of being his cousin Shirin's lover was actually a Jewish man named Doron Kabilio, whom he recognized as the suicide bomber in the al-Buraq operation. al-Abed was unable to prevent the operation from being thwarted by Israeli counter-terrorism forces, and he instead went to Hammed's hideout to show him the footage the PPS had provided him of Kabilio's interrogation, revealing him to be an Israeli agent. As Hammed watched the video on his computer, al-Abed - alienated from Hammed due to his evil plans for the Middle East and his cousin - shot Hammed in the back of the head, killing him. He proceeded to take Hammed's keffiyeh for himself and proclaim himself the new leader of Hammed's cell.