Killing of Avi Sasportas and Ilan Saadon

Hamas was established in 1987 during the opening phase of the First Intifada, building an armed capacity alongside its political and religious structures.[1] Shortly after the organization's founding, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin — Hamas's spiritual leader and founder — ordered the kidnapping and killing of Israeli soldiers inside Israel, with their bodies to be concealed for possible use in negotiations to release Hamas prisoners.[2] The plan reflected a dual strategic logic: abducting soldiers would provide leverage in prisoner negotiations while signaling to the Palestinian public that Hamas had entered the armed struggle.[3]

Hamas commander Salah Shahadeh was assigned to implement the order. He activated a cell led by Muhammad Sharahteha — also transliterated as al-Sharatha — whose members included Abd Rabbo Abu Hosa, Muhammad Nasser, and Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.[4] The cell's members disguised themselves as ultra-Orthodox Jews and used vehicles with Israeli license plates, allowing them to approach hitchhiking soldiers in southern Israel without immediately arousing suspicion.[4]

Israeli security services had already identified Hamas as an emerging threat. An account from the Combating Terrorism Center states that Israel had mapped approximately 50 Hamas cells in Gaza and the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — before the arrests that followed the murders. The abductions demonstrated the organization's ability to conduct premeditated clandestine operations inside Israel.[1]

On February 16, 1989, Avi Sasportas was hitchhiking home to Ashdod when a vehicle stopped for him near Hodaya Junction in southern Israel.[5][6] Sasportas was a paramedic in the Paratroopers Brigade, while a separate account identifies him as a medic in the then-secret Maglan unit.[5][4] A Hamas account gives the date as February 17 and calls the location "Joulus" near the Hadai junction. It says the cell disarmed him and took his identity papers before killing and disposing of him.[7]

In a later televised interview, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh said the abductors drove with Sasportas for approximately three kilometers before shooting him with a handgun and burying him.[8] Accounts differ over the exact burial site. Mako places it near Givati Junction; one Ynet report says his body was found in an open field near the abduction site; and another says he was shot in the head and buried by the roadside.[5][6] The accounts nevertheless agree that his body was concealed close to the area of the abduction.

Thousands of police officers, soldiers, and volunteers searched for Sasportas for 81 days. His body was found in May 1989, shortly after Saadon's abduction.[5][6] A film item in the National Library of Israel's Dan Hadani Archive documents his funeral and identifies him as an IDF soldier killed by terrorists.[9] The two cases together precipitated the large-scale arrests of Hamas members that followed.[1]

Al-Mabhouh described the killing as part of a plan to abduct Israeli soldiers and exchange them for Palestinian prisoners.[8] Hamas's military wing separately characterized him as one of its founders and as the person behind both kidnappings. Those claims were organizational statements by Hamas rather than independent findings.[10]

Less than three months later, on May 3, 1989, Corporal Ilan Saadon — an armored-unit soldier on short leave — was hitchhiking near Re'em Junction in the Kiryat Malachi area when the same Hamas cell struck again.[3][5] The cell arrived in a white Subaru deliberately loaded with equipment so that it had room for only one passenger. Saadon had been waiting with a friend but entered the vehicle alone.[4]

Saadon accepted the ride from men dressed as ultra-Orthodox Jews and initially had no reason to suspect danger. He soon realized that they were Hamas terrorists intending to take him to Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip.[3] After encountering an IDF patrol, the cell changed course toward Palmachim. Saadon fought his captors inside the moving vehicle, was shot in the head, and was buried in the Palmachim area.[3][4] Ynet later reported that his remains were found approximately eight meters beneath a road south of Rishon Lezion.[5]

Saadon's family did not know his fate for years. His remains were found in 1996 after seven years of intensive searching; a separate historical account places the recovery in the sands of Palmachim.[3][11] The family's searches had also contributed to locating Sasportas soon after Saadon's abduction, although the INSS-hosted account does not provide operational details.[3][6]

Ahmed Yassin, who had been arrested by Israel, refused to disclose the soldiers' burial locations even after Saadon's family appealed to him personally.[12] Saadon's sister, Mazal Huta, met Yassin and begged him to reveal where her brother was buried.[5] In late 2001, a Golani Brigade force arrested senior Hamas member Abdel Rabbo Abu Hosa, whom Ynet described as involved in both kidnappings.[5]

Saadon's brother Charlie described the particular cruelty of the family's uncertainty. "It hurts more than the possibility that he had died in battle," he said. "He was an innocent soldier, murdered brutally without any possibility of defending himself."[3] He also said that throughout the years of not knowing, the family continued to hope Ilan would return.[3] The case was later presented as an early example of Hamas withholding information to inflict psychological pressure on Israeli families.[12]

The murders produced a sweeping Israeli security response. The IDF and Shin Bet arrested more than 500 Hamas members, including Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.[13] The Combating Terrorism Center places the number of Hamas members and leaders arrested across Gaza and Judea and Samaria at roughly 650.[1] Israel Hayom describes the operation as the first time the Israeli public became broadly aware of Hamas as a distinct organization and direct threat.[13]

Yassin was arrested in 1989 following the two killings. During interrogation, he confirmed that he had ordered the creation of a military element within Hamas and approved the recruitment of terrorists and the execution of terrorist attacks.[2] Accounts differ over his sentence. The Jewish Virtual Library and the Combating Terrorism Center report two life terms, while Encyclopedia.com reports that he received life imprisonment plus fifteen years in October 1991.[1][14] Encyclopedia.com also states that Yassin denied inciting the kidnappings while admitting in court that he was a founder of Hamas.[14]

Muhammad Sharahteha, the cell commander identified with the abductions, was arrested approximately one month after Saadon's murder.[4] The ICT Incidents Database identifies him as Mohammed al-Sharatha and reports that he received three life terms plus a separate 30-year term.[15] A Jewish Virtual Library prisoner table gives his arrest date as May 9, 1989, and lists three life terms.[16] The ICT report also identifies Mahmoud al-Mabhouh as involved but does not specify his exact role.[15]

The arrests initially appeared to cripple Hamas. They also forced the organization to adapt: its external leadership strengthened coordination, while imprisoned members developed a parallel command structure inside Israeli prisons. The Combating Terrorism Center assesses that these changes ultimately reinforced Hamas's organizational cohesion and resilience.[1]

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh occupied a significant place in accounts of the operations. The ICT Incidents Database identifies him as involved alongside Sharahteha.[15] In a televised interview, al-Mabhouh recounted the Sasportas abduction, saying that the cell drove with the soldier for about three kilometers before shooting him with a handgun and burying him. Ynet presented him as the operation's mastermind.[8]

Hamas's military wing separately described al-Mabhouh as one of the founders of its armed wing and as the person behind both kidnappings, although those characterizations were statements by Hamas itself.[10] Al-Mabhouh was killed in Dubai in January 2010.[6]

The Sasportas family declined to comment on his killing but thanked the defense establishment and expressed support for Israel's security forces and the IDF. Saadon's mother, Gilbert, said she was outraged to learn of his death nearly 21 years after her son's abduction because she had believed that everyone involved had already been killed. "It's a shame they did it only now," she said.[10]

Before Saadon's remains were recovered, information about his burial location became a subject of attempted negotiation. A 2004 U.S. Department of Justice release reported an indictment's allegation that Muhammad Salah, after his arrest by Israeli authorities on January 25, 1993, tried to exchange information supplied by Hamas figures about Saadon's burial place for the release of numerous detainees held in Israeli prisons.[17] The allegation reflected the value Hamas placed on information about captured soldiers and their remains.

The families' searches continued for years. The INSS-hosted account describes seven years of intensive efforts by Saadon's family and says that their searches also contributed to locating Sasportas.[3] Yassin's sustained refusal to disclose burial information, even after a personal appeal from Saadon's family, was later cited as part of a broader Hamas practice of using uncertainty to exert psychological pressure on Israeli families.[12]

Muhammad Sharahteha, who was serving three life terms as head of the cell responsible for the abductions and murders, was included among the 477 prisoners released in the first stage of the 2011 Gilad Shalit exchange.[18] A Jewish Virtual Library prisoner table records Gaza as his release destination.[16]

A Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs profile states that Yahya Sinwar was arrested in 1989 for the abduction and murder of two unnamed IDF soldiers and the killing of four Palestinians suspected of treason. It says he received four life sentences, served 22 years, and was released in the Shalit exchange.[19] Because the profile does not identify the two soldiers, it does not independently connect Sinwar to the Sasportas and Saadon cases.

Yassin was released from Israeli custody in October 1997 in exchange for two Mossad agents after the failed attempt to assassinate Hamas leader Khaled Mashal in Jordan. He was killed in an Israeli helicopter missile strike on March 22, 2004.[2]

The Shalit exchange renewed public attention to the 1989 murders. Ynet described Sharahteha as commander of Hamas's Unit 101 and head of the cell responsible for killing Sasportas and Saadon, noting that he had been sentenced to three life terms.[18]

The murders left an enduring mark on Israeli society and on Hamas's development. Among their most immediate cultural effects was a change in attitudes toward hitchhiking. Analyst Anat Kurz assessed that the two kidnappings helped establish a fear of hitchhiking in Israel that persisted for years.[3] For Israelis who had regarded hitchhiking, particularly by soldiers, as an ordinary communal practice, the cases marked a lasting loss of confidence in its safety.

The cases were also an early example of Hamas concealing captives or bodies to create negotiating leverage and prolong uncertainty for families and the state.[3][12] The kidnappings were not especially sophisticated: it was unclear whether the terrorists knew where to take their captives or how to negotiate with Israel. Their strategic effect was nevertheless substantial because they provided potential bargaining chips and demonstrated to Palestinians that Hamas had entered the armed struggle.[3]

An appendix cataloging prominent Hamas terrorist attacks lists the abductions and murders of Sasportas and Saadon on February 16 and May 3, 1989, respectively.[20]

The human consequences extended beyond the two soldiers. Judith Sasportas, a visual artist and Avi's younger sister, described in a 2020 interview how her brother's murder by Hamas had shaped her life. She recalled that while living abroad she had long avoided mentioning him publicly.[21] For the Saadon family, the seven years between Ilan's murder and the recovery of his body — marked by searches, appeals to Yassin, and continuing uncertainty — constituted a prolonged ordeal alongside bereavement.[3][12]

The cases remain a reference point in accounts of Hamas's origins, its early adoption of hostage-taking as a strategic instrument, and the history of the Israeli-Hamas conflict during the First Intifada.

Sources differ over the sentence imposed on Ahmed Yassin. The Jewish Virtual Library and the Combating Terrorism Center report two life terms, whereas Encyclopedia.com reports life imprisonment plus fifteen years.[1][14] Encyclopedia.com also records that Yassin denied inciting the kidnappings while admitting that he was a Hamas founder.[14]

Responsibility is described at different organizational levels. The ICT database names Sharahteha as responsible and al-Mabhouh as involved, while Mako describes Sharahteha as field commander under a directive from Yassin implemented through Salah Shahadeh.[15][4] Hamas's military wing separately claimed that al-Mabhouh was behind both kidnappings; that characterization remains an attributed Hamas statement.[10]

The recovery chronology also requires care. Ynet reports that Sasportas's body was found in May 1989 after an 81-day search, while the Mako feature incorrectly states that both soldiers' bodies were found in 1996.[5][4] The INSS-hosted account and a separate Mako historical item support 1996 as the year Saadon's remains were found.[3][11] Ynet additionally reports that the Palestinian Authority supplied a map of possible locations in 1997, creating a chronology that is difficult to reconcile with the reported 1996 recovery.[5]

The Hamas account reproduced by the Jewish Virtual Library gives February 17 rather than February 16 for Sasportas's abduction, uses different transliterations of both soldiers' names, and inaccurately states that the second body was found seven days after the first. It should therefore be treated as the perpetrators' organizational record rather than an independently reliable chronology.[7]