Hamas’s headquarters in Istanbul has directed hundreds of terrorist attacks against Israelis and laundered millions of dollars, a recent report by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs has said.
The report noted that “a decade has passed since the official opening of Hamas’s offices in Istanbul, and Turkey is courting Israel anew. Turkey collaborates with terror organizations on both the ideological and operational levels. Terrorists working on Turkish soil establish infrastructures and plan terror attacks against Israel.”
According to the report, Hamas senior officials—most of them former security prisoners serving sentences for terrorism, who were released in the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange—“are operating from Turkey against Israel. Some have even been granted Turkish citizenship.”
It noted that the December counter-terror raid in Nablus and Hebron by Israeli security forces was accompanied by a no-departure ban on several senior Hamas operatives who allegedly “would link up with Hamas officials overseas.”
“Turkey today seeks another reconciliation with Israel. Israel should demand ‘payment in advance,’ meaning that the Turks must first act against the Hamas operatives on their soil and prove that they are preventing them from continuing to act against Israel,” said the report.
“Only then,” it added, “will it be worth upgrading relations with Turkey to a level of understanding and cooperation—a goal that both sides certainly have an interest in promoting.”
