Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, May 17, 2006.
Fuad Hejazi Muhammad Shubaki, born in 1942, from the Gaza Strip, was
transferred to the Israel Security Agency (ISA) for investigation on 14.3.06,
after being apprehended in a combined IDF-Israel Police-ISA operation at the
Jericho prison, where ha had been incarcerated since May 2002.
Prior to being incarcerated in Jericho, Shubaki was in charge of finances for the
Palestinian Authority (PA) General Security service and had been the late Yasser
Arafat’s finance person. Shubaki admitted that upon the outbreak of the current
round of Palestinian violence and terrorism in the autumn of 2000, Yasser
Arafat ordered him to purchase such large quantities of weapons as the various
funding sources would allow. To this end, senior PA security service officials
began to purchase war materiel and set up an administrative apparatus, with
representatives stationed abroad, to aid them.
Shubaki said that these officials passed proposals for purchasing arms to him;
he then submitted them to Arafat for approval. After receiving Arafat’s
approval, Shubaki would finance the various purchases. The PA thus acquired
vast quantities of weapons, munitions, explosives, etc.
Shubaki said that among the aforesaid senior security service officials were
Jibril Rajoub, Amin al-Hindi, Haj Ismail, Rashid Abu Shabak, Abdul Razek
Majaideh and Ghazi Jebali. In addition to financing the smuggling of war
materiel, Shubaki also financed the independent production of war materiel for
the PA, including grenades, explosives, RPG’s, etc.
According to Shubaki, the financing for these war materiel purchases came
from international assistance, tax revenues from the Gaza Strip, customs
revenues transferred by Israel and funds from Arab countries. When the latter
two were either in short supply or were absent, purchases were
correspondingly scaled down. Shubaki estimated that between $7-10 million in
PA funds was spent every two years on war materiel for the Gaza Strip and $2
million on war material for Judea and Samaria.
Shubaki said that the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and the Tanzim used weapons
supplied by the PA security services, the smuggling and purchase of which was
financed by Shubaki, with Arafat’s knowledge.
Shubaki and Yasser Arafat were also directly involved in the Karine A affair.
Shubaki said that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah were among
those who financed and guided the smuggling attempt by the Karine A , and
Iran, Hezbollah and Ahmed Jibril’s organization had contributed the war material
on board.
Shubaki said that he met with Iranian officials in Dubai in March 2001 and
added that the latter had offered to aid the PA similar to their aid to Hamas and
Islamic Jihad. This included assistance in channelling funds to the PA areas, in
weapons production, and in military training. Shubaki said that Arafat opposed
accepting this Iranian assistance, fearing an Iranian plot to attack him.
