A last-minute, partial debt payment is keeping Hamas' broadcast wing in the Gaza Strip on air — for now — but the organization still faces a financial crisis that threatens what is left of its media assets.
Hamas’ financial woes have worsened in recent years for several reasons: declining Iranian support since 2012, Egypt's campaign to close off smuggling tunnels between Gaza and Sinai since 2013 and shrinking financial donations from abroad. This is all on top of the pressure that weighs on Hamas from the United States, Israel and some Arab countries that accuse the movement of funding terrorism.
The movement’s Al-Aqsa TV channel announced Dec. 19 that financial problems — compounded by Israel's devastating bombing Nov. 12 of the station's Gaza Strip headquarters — would drive it off the air for the first time since 2006. Prominent sources in Hamas told Al-Monitor that senior leaders then made some calls, after which Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas’ political bureau, announced Dec. 20 that the channel would not stop broadcasting after all, and that part of its $220,000 debt had been settled.
Al-Aqsa TV broadcasts from the Gaza Strip and has offices for its reporters in Lebanon and Jordan. The channel’s facility in the West Bank was closed in July amid the ongoing Palestinian division.
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