Hamas TV Wins Reward in Al-Jazeera Film Festival
April 25, 2010
By: Yaniv Berman
A short film produced by Hamas’s satellite TV station, “Al-Aqsa”, won a reward in the Sixth Al-Jazeera International Documentary Film Festival , according to Hamas’s online magazine, Al-Risala.
The film, titled “Between Truth and Fire”, participated in the Freedoms and Human Rights category. Produced in Gaza by Ibrahim Muslim and Muhammad Hamu, the film revealed the “Zionist Occupation’s crimes against the Palestinians.”
The US Treasury designated Al-Aqsa TV on 18 March 2010. In its announcement, the Treasury said:
Al-Aqsa TV is a television station financed and controlled by Hamas. Al-Aqsa is a primary Hamas media outlet and airs programs and music videos designed to recruit children to become Hamas armed fighters and suicide bombers upon reaching adulthood.
Treasury will not distinguish between a business financed and controlled by a terrorist group, such as Al-Aqsa Television, and the terrorist group itself.
Hamas leadership raised the initial capital for the station shortly after the January 2006 Palestinian elections. At that time, donors contributed half a million dollars for the channel, which was to be headed by members of Hamas, and shortly thereafter, Hamas leaders negotiated broadcasting arrangements with a satellite television provider. As of late 2009, the Hamas headquarters in Damascus, Syria, allocated hundreds of thousands of dollars for Al-Aqsa TV’s budget, and senior Hamas officials continued to control the station’s operations.
Fathi Hammad, the former director of Al-Aqsa TV, currently serves as the Hamas interior minister in Gaza, is a former senior member of Hamas’s military wing in Gaza, and as of 2007, was a member of the Hamas Shura Council. Hammad has supervised the construction of smuggling tunnels for Hamas and has encouraged the building and use of homemade weapons for use against Israel. In May 2009, Dr. Mahmud Abu Daf replaced Hammad as the head of Al-Aqsa TV. Abu-Daf is a senior Hamas figure who served as a member of the Hamas Shura Council and Political Bureau.
The festival’s website has not mentioned Al-Aqsa’s win. Middle East Focus sent an email to Mr. Abbas Arnaout, the festival’s director, asking to verify the report in Hamas’s magazine. Thus far we have received no answer.
In another matter, Israel has allowed the three-year-old daughter of Fathi Hammad, Hamas’s Interior Minister, to pass through Israel on her way for medical treatment in Jordan.
Israeli security officials approved the transfer following a request made by Jordan’s King Abdullah, as the girl was in serious danger, according to a report in the Israeli news website, YNET.
Hamad’s daughter and her mother left the Gaza Strip through the Erez crossing. The girl received initial medical care in Israel’s Barzilai Medical Center and was then flown to a hospital in Amman on a Jordanian helicopter.
Hamad is involved in the indirect talks between Hamas and Israel regarding the prisoners exchange deal.
There was no mention of this report in Hamas’s two leading news websites, Palestine Info and Al-Risala.
