Walid al-Abed (1995-2018) was a Palestinian Hamas commander who served as leader of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades in the West Bank from 2015. Formerly the right-hand man of "the Panther," Taufiq Hammed, al-Abed became the new leader of Hammed's cell after killing the rogue operative on behalf of Hamas political leader Abu Samara. In 2018, Walid formed an alliance with the ISIL-trained terrorist Abu Seif al-Makdasi, only to cut ties with Makdasi when he proved unwilling to subordinate himself to Hamas leadership. He was captured in a joint Mista'arvim-Palestinian Preventive Security operation in Ramallah that same year, and he was executed by Naor Barzani after informing on Makdasi's location.
Biography[]
A young Walid, 2015
Walid al-Abed was born in Safwad, West Bank in 1995 to a family of Sunni Palestinians; he was the cousin of the half-French doctor Shirin al-Abed, for whom he harbored unrequited love from a young age. Unlike his secular cousin, Walid went down a radical Islamist path, joining Hamas under the tutelage of arch-terrorist Taufiq Hammed. In 2015, Taufiq's sister-in-law Amal Hammed persuaded Walid to put her in contact with Taufiq, who recruited her for the Saint Bernard nightclub bombing operation. Walid later approached his cousin to assist with the wounded Taufiq's treatment, as well as to implant a bomb into the captured Israeli soldier Boaz Capon. Walid gradually fell out with Taufiq due to the latter's obsession with revenge for the death of his brother Bashir Hammed, as well as for his laster insistence that Shirin be murdered after believing that she had (willingly) informed the Israelis about his plan to turn Boaz into an unwilling suicide bomber. Rather than killing his cousin as Taufiq willed, Walid instead proposed marriage to his older cousin, but she merely agreed to consider his offer.
An Israeli surveillance photo of al-Abed
Walid, alienated from his mentor, approached Hamas political leader Abu Samara at his bureau in Ramallah and persuaded him that Taufiq should be eliminated now that he had become a loose cannon. However, Abu Samara insisted that it should be Walid behind the gun, and he handed Walid a handgun purchased from an Israeli soldier and told him to kill Taufiq and make it appear as if he was killed in an IDF raid. Walid considered killing Taufiq as he was praying, but Taufiq told Walid of his intention to make him his successor in the case of his death at the hands of Abu Samara or one of his other men. Walid decided against betraying his boss, and Taufiq temporarily won back a degree of trust with Walid.
Abed interviewing suicide bombers
Meanwhile, al-Abed set about recruiting suicide bombers, and he recruited undercover Israeli operative Doron Kabilio as the perpetrator for Operation al-Buraq, a mass-casualty attack that, unbeknownst to Walid, would involve sarin gas. When his cousin Shirin renounced her intention to marry him, however, Walid realized that she likely still loved a man whom he believed to be a member of the Palestinian Preventine Security, and he went to PPS chief Abu Maher and demanded to know the identity of the undercover agent. However, Abu Maher instead revealed that there was no undercover PPS agent involved, but only an undercover Jewish man, whom Abed recognized as Kabilio, who was concurrently being prepared for the "al-Buraq" operation by Khaled al-Yahudi, Najib More, and Samir Zulka. 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.
Over the next three years, Walid married Shirin after showing her the video of Doron proving that he was an undercover Israeli; Shirin continued to work at the Rafidia Hospital, but she began to don the hijab and adopt her husband's anti-Semitic views. The young al-Abed partnered with the ISIL-trained terrorist Abu Seif al-Makdasi (the son of Sheikh Awadalla), who, in 2018, returned to Palestine from Syria to avenge his father's death by assassinating Kabilio. Kabilio survived an attempt on his life before returning to his old unit with the objective of hunting down al-Makdasi and helping Shin Bet kill him.
Walid being arrested
Abu Seif's insistence on doing things his way resulted in a heated argument with Abu Samara, and, after Abu Seif ignored Walid al-Abed's repeated warnings that he answered to a higher authority, Walid announced that Abu Seif and his cell of Palestinian Birzeit University students were out of Hamas. Meanwhile, Shirin al-Abed was persuaded by Doron to become an Israeli informant, with Doron promising her a fresh start in Germany in exchange for her communicating with him via a SIM card he gave her. The Mista'arvim tracked Walid down to Ramallah as he kidnapped his wife from in front of the Four Seasons Hotel and drove away with her in a taxi, and the Palestinian Preventive Service tailed al-Abed's car. Walid revealed to his wife that Nidal (in reality, Nidal's sister-in-law Marwa) had informed him that she had been spotted conversing with a strange man (Doron) on the hospital rooftop, and he had his bodyguard check her bag. He aimed a gun at her when the bodyguard found a German passport and a SIM card hidden in it, and only the Palestinian police's pulling over of the car prevented Walid from murdering his wife. When the police positively identified Walid, they shot his bodyguards and arrested the terrorist leader.
al-Abed in prison
al-Abed was interrogated by Shin Bet captain Gabi Ayub and his assistant Dana Shirom, but he proved unbreakable. Shin Bet inserted Mista'arvim undercover operative Naor Barzani as al-Abed's cellmate with the identity of "Ahmad Shamasna", a Hamas tunnel-digger from Gaza who also had a backstory involving a female lover betraying him. The two became close, although al-Abed grew suspicious of "Shamasna" for his questioning about his past operations, for growing squeamish when he described his murder of the captive Israeli soldier Boaz Capon, and when Shamasna said that he loved his mother's akkoub (a dish that did not exist in Gaza). Al-Abed confronted Barzani about his identity, resulting in a fistfight before the operation was called off. Days later, Shirin was brought to meet Walid in prison, where Walid berated her for wearing a necklace gifted by Kabilio, and reminded her that her mother Hiba had been murdered and thrown into the street for being labeled a "traitor".
al-Abed's body
Tiring of conventional torture methods, Shin Bet had al-Abed's prison van hijacked as its took him from Shin Bet captivity to prison to serve out his sentence, and the Mista'arvim team shot al-Abed in the leg, beat him, and threatened to set him on fire. Walid was then forced to admit that Makdasi was based out of Abu Naim's barbershop in the Old City's Yasmini quarter. Doron reluctantly put away his gun, saying that he had promised Shirin that he would not kill al-Abed, but Barzani - who had no such qualms - shot the captive al-Abed in the head. His body was later found in the hills near Nablus, wrapped in a white blanket with the phrase "traitor" spray-painted onto it.