Hamas operative Ibrahim Hilu was charged Thursday in Israeli court for holding the body of slain soldier Staff Sgt. Oron Shaul in the Gaza Strip for over a decade on behalf of the terror group.

The 46-year-old Gaza resident was indicted in the Beersheba District Court on charges of aiding the enemy in war, membership in a terrorist organization and using a gun for terrorist aims.

Shaul, 20 at the time of his death, was killed in Gaza City’s Shejaiya neighborhood during the 2014 Gaza War when the armored personnel carrier he was traveling in came under fire from anti-tank missiles launched by Hamas.

His body was dragged away from the scene by Hamas operatives and subsequently held in Gaza for over a decade.

State prosecutors allege that Hilu, a shopkeeper formerly active in the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, was enlisted by his higher-ups to hold Shaul’s body in a large meat freezer in the basement of one of his businesses in Gaza City.

He was instructed to distance himself from the terror group’s military activity so as to not call attention to himself, and according to........

© The Times of Israel