Who Was Ziad Malaisha of the Anat Kam Affair?

Elad Benari
Shalomlife.com
08 April '10

A Tel Aviv court has lifted the gag order which prevented the Israeli media from reporting on the Anat Kam affair. Kam, 23, is accused of a series of serious offences, including espionage, leaking secret information without authorization in an attempt to compromise the State's security and possession of classified information. Allegedly she stole over 2,000 secret documents while she served in the IDF and then transferred them to Haaretz journalist Uri Blau, who proceeded to write a series of reports based on the information in these documents.

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On November 26, 2008, Blau published a report which claimed that the IDF does not operate in accordance with the High Court's ruling on targeted killings. The article uncovered documents which were written as part of the IDF investigation documenting the work of the Central Command before the operation during which Ziad Malaisha, a wanted Islamic Jihad militant, was killed. Haaretz contended that, in violation of the High Court’s order, an okay was given to assassinate Malaisha when he could simply have been arrested.

On November 27, 2008, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs published an article by Jonathan Dahoah Halevi which outlined the Malaisha affair from the perspective of the Islamic Jihad.



The Islamic Jihad’s official website said that Ziad Malaisha was commander of the Jerusalem Battalions, the military wing of the organization. He was born in 1982 to what was described as a "fighting family" in the village of Jaba near Jenin. During his youth he had secretly joined the Islamic Jihad and was active in the al-Ja’Maah al-Islamiya school, a student organization of the Islamic Jihad. He continued this activity even while studying at Al-Quds Open University. Malaisha was arrested for his activities by the IDF, and was sentenced to three and a half years in prison. After his release he once again became wanted for security reasons. He went underground, commanded the Jerusalem Battalions and participated in operations against Israel.

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