It sounds as though someone may have started out looking for something on the basis of the Qur'an, which has similar stories to the Bible, and, not surprisingly, found it. A lot of Palestinian archaeology is on that level, so he's not alone.
I'm not sure whether the Qur'an does or doesn't refer to coin in this context. Translations vary, I have no Arabic, and I don't have the same resources for it as I do for the Old Testament. The version of the story in Genesis, on which the Qur'anic version is based, refers to 'silver' as a unit of exchange. It could easily be a reference to
shekel weights of silver rather than coin, and the story will have been written no earlier than the mid-First Millennium BC. I think Dr Thabet and
his colleagues are failing to consider the date of their written sources, and before I believe any of it, I'd like to see some solid evidence that these objects were indeed circulating as coin.