Hamas denies released detainees are plotting attacks from abroad
Israel says, and Hamas denies, that high-ranking military leaders and Hamas cadres are coordinating armed operations against Israel while based in countries such as Turkey, Qatar, Syria and Jordan.
A series of armed operations took place in the West Bank in recent weeks, killing and injuring a number of Israelis. Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, claimed responsibility July 1 for some of the attacks, in which no Palestinians were injured.
Also on July 1, the Israeli security service Shin Bet announced it had arrested 40 Hamas activists in the northern West Bank in recent months who had sought to establish military cells to carry out operations against Israelis. It accuses Husam Badran, Hamas' spokesman in Qatar, of leading, funding and guiding the activists, and sending them hundreds of thousands of dollars. Badran is a former commander of al-Qassam Brigades in the northern West Bank.
Badran told Al-Monitor, “Putting the blame on the liberated detainees for the resistance actions in the West Bank is an attempt by Israel to justify its security [services’] failure to halt the escalation of armed operations. The al-Qassam Brigades operations are managed, planned and implemented by [al-Qassam’s] cadres in the West Bank, and they do not need anyone’s permission to exercise their right to resist the occupation.”
Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said in a July 1 interview on Israeli Channel 10 that Turkey is also responsible for the operations in the West Bank, because it is hosting Hamas leader Salah al-Arouri, who Ya'alon said is planning to carry out attacks against Israel.
