Shin Bet: Hamas TV sent secret signals to sleeper cells inside Israel

The television station’s directing of terrorists indicates an increased Hamas presence in Judea and Samaria in areas under Palestinian Authority control.

By David Jablinowitz, World Israel News

A report issued Wednesday morning by Israel’s Shin Bet domestic security agency is accusing Hamas of using its television station to direct Arab terrorists inside Israel and Palestinian Authority areas.

According to the Shin Bet report released on Wednesday, Hamas has been using Al-Aqsa television to reach potential terrorists in Judea and Samaria, as well as Jerusalem.

Israeli military intelligence officials have been warning for years about an increased Hamas presence in Judea and Samaria. The terror group seized control of the Gaza Strip from the Palestinian Authority in 2007.

The Shin Bet is accusing the Hamas satellite television channel of using secret coded messages to signal directions to “sleeper” cells in Judea, Samaria, and eastern Jerusalem. These cells are groups of terrorists which remain inactive within a target population until ordered to act.

Al-Quds TV, a pro-Hamas television station, has halted its operations because of a major financial crisis after just over ten years on the air, a manager at the channel said Tuesday.

“The administration has asked employees to stop coming to work because of a massive financial crisis. So we are now sitting at home,” Imad al-Efrenji, the head of Al-Quds TV’s Gaza office, told the Times of Israel on Tuesday.

“If no Arab, Muslim or Palestinian donor makes a significant donation to save the channel, the administration will have to permanently close it,” he said.

“We have always relied on Arab and Muslim donors and to a small extent on advertisements,” he added. “We recently have seen our supporters sending their money to other causes [in] Yemen, Syria, and other places instead of us.”

In July, then Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman signed an order which declared Al-Quds TV, which operates from Lebanon, a terrorist organization, the minister’s spokesperson stated.

The decision was made at the recommendation of the Shin Bet and the Defense Ministry’s recently-established national bureau for countering terror financing, said the statement.