SENIOR HAMAS OFFICER DEFECTS TO ISRAEL:

A senior Hamas military officer, Bassam Mahmoud Baraka, has fled from Gaza to Israel with a laptop full of information about Gaza tunnels. Baraka reportedly went to the border fence and gave himself up to IDF soldiers who were waiting for him. Baraka, who is the son of a Muslim religious judge affiliated with Hamas, told his family that he was going on errands, and hasn't been seen by them since. The Red Cross reportedly informed his family in Gaza that he was in Israeli custody. In their reports, the Fatah-affiliated websites lambasted Hamas for its men surrendering to Israel, noting that this was not the first time that senior members of the organization, particularly those involved in the Gaza tunnel operations, ended up in Israeli custody. Last month a 17-year-old Hamas member, who was captured by Israel after infiltrating the country, gave investigators information about the group's tunnel activities. The youth told his investigators about the work of Hamas in digging tunnels to allow its fighters to infiltrate Israel, about the routes of tunnels intended for use in case of emergency and information about the location of many tunnel shafts. (Ha’aretz