Al-Aqsa TV

Al-Aqsa TV combines general television programming with its role as a primary Hamas media outlet, operating under the organization’s financial and managerial control.[1] Its schedule has included news, political commentary, Qur’an readings, and children’s programs, and its satellite broadcasts have reached audiences in the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe.[2] The station’s official website identifies it in Arabic as “قناة الأقصى الفضائية,” meaning “Al-Aqsa Satellite Channel,” and provides a live-stream option and links to broadcast frequencies.[8]

The channel forms part of a broader Hamas-associated communications network whose early activities included print journalism, radio, television, and artistic production.[3] Its development from a limited Gaza-based terrestrial service into a satellite broadcaster extended its availability beyond the territory where its studios were located.[3][9] Satellite distribution also meant that Palestinian Authority restrictions did not prevent Palestinians outside Gaza from receiving its broadcasts.[9]

U.S. human-rights reports described Al-Aqsa preschool programming as extolling hatred of Jews and suicide bombings.[9][10] Other reporting documented children’s broadcasts that encouraged armed action against Israel.[2] Its programming has consequently figured in American sanctions, European broadcasting restrictions, and disputes over the relationship between media activity and Hamas operations.[1][4][11] Alongside those issues, the station’s history includes disrupted satellite distribution, destruction of broadcasting facilities, financial difficulties, and repeated efforts to remain on air.[5][6][12]

Experimental Al-Aqsa TV broadcasts began in January 2006, during Hamas’s campaign for the Palestinian Legislative Council elections.[2][3] The initial service was a non-satellite UHF station based in Gaza, rather than the international satellite channel it would later become.[3] A planned test period of one to three months was to feature limited news coverage and programs about social issues, health, and Islam before the introduction of a permanent schedule.[3]

Al-Ribat Communications and Artistic Production operated Hamas’s radio and television stations, with Ahmad Muhammad Fathi Hamad serving as chairman of its board.[3] The company had published the weekly newspaper Al-Rissalah and operated Sawt Al-Aqsa radio since December 2003, giving the television project an existing organizational setting within a wider media operation.[3] Plans at the time of the experimental launch included both satellite transmission and a permanent broadcasting schedule.[3]

Fathi Ahmad Hammad was identified as the station’s founder, while a later account also identified Salah al-Bardawil as his partner in establishing the network in 2006.[2][13] Hammad operated the channel through a subsidiary company he managed, and the network’s subsequent development included a radio station and the Shihab news agency.[13] These television activities therefore developed alongside other means of distributing Hamas-associated news and political messages.[3][13]

Shortly after the January 2006 elections, donors contributed $500,000 in initial capital for the station.[1] Hamas leaders arranged for the channel to be headed by members of the organization and began negotiating satellite broadcasting arrangements.[1] By late 2009, Hamas headquarters in Damascus had allocated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the station’s budget, while senior Hamas officials continued to control its operations.[1]

The channel’s management reflected those organizational connections.[1] Fathi Hammad, a former director, had served on Hamas’s Shura Council; Mahmud Abu-Daf replaced him as head of the station in May 2009.[1] Abu-Daf had served on both the Shura Council and the Political Bureau, placing the station’s leadership within Hamas’s senior institutional circles.[1]

The ADL reported that “Tomorrow’s Pioneers,” also rendered in coverage as “The Pioneers of Tomorrow,” used child presenters and animal-costumed adult performers in a format combining entertainment with political and religious messages.[2][14] Its account of an April 2007 episode said Farfour, a character resembling Mickey Mouse, called for the liberation of Jerusalem and other places while the character and child actors urged children to take up arms against Israel and the United States.[2] Farfour declared, “We will return the Islamic community to its former greatness,” and called for the liberation of Jerusalem, Iraq, and Muslim countries.[2]

After criticism of the character, young viewers were told that an Israeli “interrogator” had killed Farfour and that he had become a martyr.[15] Farfour was replaced by a bee character, Nahool, who continued delivering messages promoting armed struggle.[2] The use of replacement costumed characters allowed similar themes to continue within the children’s-program format.[2]

A December 3, 2007 children’s broadcast included a boy arguing that Al-Aqsa Mosque would be returned “only by means of force.”[16] A girl in the same excerpt declared, “We will wipe out the people of Zion, and will not leave a single one of them.”[16] Human-rights reports for 2008 and 2010 described preschool programming as extolling hatred of Jews and suicide bombings.[9][10]

A May 2, 2014 segment featured a young host asking a child about shooting Jews; the child answered, “I will shoot the Jews,” and the presenter affirmed the response.[14] Earlier segments included an animal-costumed co-host encouraging a child in Jenin to attack Jews, with the examples circulated through a translated video clip.[14] In another episode, children identified as grandchildren of former Hamas parliamentarian Umm Nidal praised suicide attacks and expressed a wish to become martyrs.[17] A child presenter urged sacrifice to liberate Palestine and Jerusalem.[17]

A 2011 human-rights report said the station also aired anti-Jewish messages outside children’s programming.[18] It recorded a December 2011 sermon by a preacher calling for the killing of Jews.[18] The Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs reports that a July 25, 2014 broadcast from a mosque in Deir al-Balah featured an unidentified imam calling for the Jews’ “complete destruction.”[19]

The same center describes Yunis al-Astal as a senior Hamas figure and Palestinian parliamentarian, and reports that he advocated slaughtering Jews and imposing the jizya tax on them in a March 6, 2014 interview on the station.[19] Its account also quotes a June 20, 2012 interview in which al-Astal said that, after punishments inflicted by earlier empires and Germany, it was the Muslim nation’s turn to punish Jews again.[19]

General news and political commentary remained part of the schedule alongside these programs.[2] The channel criticized the Palestinian Authority for cooperating with Israel and taking security action against Hamas.[2] In 2023, interviewees characterized its presentation as openly propagandistic rather than an attempt to appear independent, while noting that Hamas sometimes supplied exclusive material, including footage of hostage releases, to Al Jazeera instead of its own channel.[20]

The Palestinian Authority banned Al-Aqsa TV in 2007, but satellite transmission preserved access for Palestinians outside Gaza.[9] Within Gaza, Hamas barred Fatah-controlled Palestinian public-access television from making or broadcasting programs, leaving most electronic media in Hamas’s hands.[2] Al-Aqsa thus operated within a divided Palestinian media environment in which the rival authorities restricted each other’s broadcasting outlets.[2][9]

Restrictions also affected individual employees.[21] In January 2010, a Palestinian Authority military court sentenced Al-Aqsa correspondent Tareq Abu Zaid to 18 months in prison for allegedly “transferring information and money.”[21] Press-freedom organizations linked his arrest to his work for the station, and he was released on November 14.[21] In 2011, the channel reportedly had some access to work in the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — without harassment.[18]

By 2015, authorities reportedly permitted the station to work in the West Bank through contracts with local communications companies.[22] That arrangement continued until November 30, after which Palestinian Authority security services instructed Palestinian communications companies to stop providing all services to Al-Aqsa TV.[22] These measures concerned the channel’s ability to operate through local service providers, separately from the availability of its satellite signal.[9][22]

European restrictions focused on satellite carriage and anti-incitement rules.[4] In June 2010, France’s broadcasting regulator ordered Eutelsat to cease transmitting Al-Aqsa TV following repeated European Commission urgings that its programs violated European laws against incitement.[4] The associated warning concerned repeated broadcasts considered to incite hatred or violence on grounds of religion or nationality.[23]

Eutelsat carried the channel through the intermediary Noorsat, which informed Al-Aqsa on June 14 that carriage would stop within 48 hours.[24] The station also used Arabsat and Nilesat and remained available through other satellite operators and online, so removal from one distribution route did not eliminate its broadcasts.[24] The relationship between the American designation earlier that year and the French regulator’s decision was unclear.[4]

A further interruption occurred in 2016, when Eutelsat again halted Al-Aqsa transmissions.[12] Hamas soon announced a replacement satellite broadcaster and provided new frequencies, although the replacement provider’s audience reach was unclear.[12] The station’s own website subsequently continued to offer online viewing and frequency information, maintaining both internet and satellite access points for viewers.[8]

Israeli strikes hit Al-Aqsa TV facilities in several rounds of fighting, including the bombing of its headquarters in December 2008.[5] During the July–August 2014 hostilities between Israel and Hamas, attacks targeting the station were reported on July 29 and July 31.[25] An account of an attack on the building housing its central Gaza City studios indicated that the station appeared to continue broadcasting normally afterward.[26]

During the same fighting, attempts to disrupt Gaza broadcasting particularly targeted Al-Aqsa TV.[27] Its offices had reportedly been evacuated, and it continued transmitting from a secret location, possibly underground, amid concern about an Israeli strike.[27] Hamas’s parliamentary faction condemned the attack on the studios as an attempt to conceal what it called “the crimes of the occupation.”[26]

On November 12, 2018, Israeli aircraft destroyed the multi-story Gaza City building housing Al-Aqsa TV during an escalation that included rocket fire toward Israel.[5][28] A warning missile preceded the main strike, personnel evacuated, and the station stopped its normal programming and displayed its logo before additional missiles hit the building.[5] Nearby homes were also evacuated following the warning, and no casualties from the strike were known at the time of the initial report.[28]

The IDF alleged that the Hamas-owned building supported military activity, including transmitting messages to operatives and broadcasting encouragement or instructions for attacks.[28] Hamas condemned the strike and called for international organizations to denounce it, while the channel’s manager said broadcasting would resume shortly.[28] The station briefly went off air but resumed transmissions from another location.[6]

The destruction produced a severe financial crisis.[6] In December 2018, Al-Aqsa announced that it would suspend broadcasts indefinitely because of its financial condition after losing its studios.[6] Director Wisam Afifa estimated the damage at about $4.5 million, said approximately 220 people worked for the channel, and linked the resumption of broadcasting to the availability of funds.[6]

The announced suspension did not occur as planned.[6] Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh said a decision had been made to keep the channel on air and that broadcasting would not stop.[6] The station subsequently described the financial crisis as partially resolved, allowing it to continue despite the destruction of its headquarters and the earlier announcement of an indefinite shutdown.[6]

The United States designated Al-Aqsa Television under Executive Order 13224 on March 18, 2010.[1] The action froze assets under United States jurisdiction and prohibited United States persons from transactions with the designated station.[1] Its stated basis included Hamas’s financing and control of the channel and programming designed to recruit children to become Hamas armed fighters and suicide bombers upon reaching adulthood.[1]

Congressional action preceded the executive designation.[29] On September 9, 2008, the House of Representatives passed H.Res.1069 by 409–1, calling on the president to designate Al-Aqsa TV as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist.[29] The resolution named “Tomorrow’s Pioneers” and “Those who Excel” and recited allegations about children’s programming, including a Bugs Bunny-like character threatening to “finish off the Jews and eat them.”[29] Those statements formed part of the resolution’s allegations rather than independent findings established by the congressional vote.[29]

In February 2019, the Shin Bet alleged that Hamas operatives used broadcasts to authenticate clandestine communications with recruits in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.[30] The alleged methods included presenters quoting a Qur’anic passage, placing a cup of tea on a desk, or repeating a line from a song at a predetermined time.[30] Such signals allegedly confirmed to a recruit that the person communicating privately with him was a Hamas operative in Gaza.[31]

The investigation identified presenters Islam Badr and Raji Hametz as participants in the alleged signaling arrangements.[31] Five Palestinians had been arrested on suspicion of recruitment for attacks in the account accompanying the allegations.[30] The reported use of ordinary studio gestures and spoken lines concerned the channel’s alleged operational function, beyond the political content visible to a general audience.[30][31]

Israel formally designated Al-Aqsa TV as a terrorist organization in March 2019.[7] Benjamin Netanyahu, serving as both prime minister and defense minister, signed the decree under Israel’s counter-terrorism law following recommendations from the Shin Bet and the Defense Ministry’s National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing.[7] The stated reason was the allegation that Hamas used the satellite channel to recruit operatives.[7]

A March 28, 2025 American sanctions update continued to identify the station as an SDGT and added secondary-sanctions-risk language.[32] The entry listed the aliases Al-Aqsa Satellite Television, Hamas TV, Siraj Al-Aqsa TV, and The Aqsa Lamp, with a location in Jabaliya, Gaza, and the website www.aqsatv.ps.[[32]](https://ofac.treasury.gov/recent-actions/20250328) These listings maintained the station’s identification within the American terrorism-sanctions framework long after the original 2010 designation.[1][32]

The station’s status as a media organization, the role of its employees, and the legality of attacks on broadcasting facilities have generated significant disputes.[11][33] Human Rights Watch maintained that pro-Hamas or anti-Israel propaganda alone did not make civilian broadcasting facilities legitimate military targets, and that journalists should not be treated as targets solely for “applauding attacks.”[11] CAMERA disputed that framing and pointed to the American designation’s rationale concerning recruitment programming.[11]

The treatment of two Al-Aqsa cameramen killed in 2012 illustrated the disagreement over staff status.[33] The IDF alleged that the men were Hamas operatives and that the network promoted attacks, while station head Mohammad Thouraya denied incitement accusations and described Al-Aqsa as the “voice of the Palestinian people.”[33] Press organizations considered the men journalists killed in the line of duty, and Newseum planned to include them in its journalists’ memorial.[33]

The more specific allegations that broadcasts authenticated recruitment communications, and that the station’s premises supported military activity, rest on security-service and military accounts in the available reporting.[28][30] They are distinct from the documented existence of the American and Israeli designations and from the broader dispute over whether propaganda alone changes a media facility’s legal status during armed conflict.[1][7][11]