Hamas recruit says he was trained in Syria

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Short stay at university
Last year, he was asked to go to Syria for training, with the intention of training other militants in Gaza.

Mattar left Gaza on Dec. 4, telling Israeli border guards he was going to study at Damascus University, which he had previously attended.

He re-enrolled in the university to maintain his cover and waited 25 days for Hamas to contact him, he said. He then received five days of training in personal safety.

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He was taught what car to drive — not a Subaru, known as the militants’ preferred car. Where to live — not in an isolated house, which can easily be targeted by an Israeli missile. How to keep his cell phone secure — regularly change the phone, the phone number and even the battery, he said.

After that, he was given a rendezvous point and driven to the Hamas training base 40 minutes outside the capital.

Five hours a day
Nearly every day, he was taken to the base for five hours of training by nine instructors in everything from electronics to weapons.

He gave only vague descriptions of the base, saying it was in a valley and appeared old and well-established. It contained a garage, several buildings, watchtowers and a tunnel, he said.

Mattar — who said he was the only militant being trained at the time — was taught to read maps and use a compass, to build an electric timer for a time bomb and how to use light weapons. He fired rocket-propelled grenades and threw hand grenades, he said.

One day, his trainers told him to hide, he said.

“Syrian intelligence came in, took a look around and left,” he said.

No one else hid, and he assumed the militants did not want the Syrian government to know they were training a Palestinian from Gaza.

In February, Mattar told his trainers he wanted to go home and they agreed.

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