The son of one of the founders of Hamas spied from inside the movement for Israel for more than a decade, providing intelligence that helped prevent dozens of suicide bombings, according to a report.

Mosab Hassan Yousef, 32, was one of the most valuable sources for Shin Bet, Israel's internal intelligence agency, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Wednesday.

His reports led to the arrests of Ibrahim Hamid, once the Islamic militant group's military chief in the West Bank, and Abdullah Barghuti, the bomb maker behind an infamous 2001 suicide attack on a restaurant in Jerusalem.

Mr Yousef was also said to have played a role in the arrest of Marwan Barghuti, a senior Fatah leader considered the architect of the 2000 intifada, or uprising.

Mr Yousef's father - Sheik Hassan Yousef - was a founding member in the 1980s of Hamas, the Iranian-backed movement that seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 and has been branded a terrorist organisation by Israel and the West.. He is currently serving a six-year sentence in an Israeli prison for his political activities.