Turkey grants citizenship to Hamas agents
Attacks feared on Israeli targets across Europe as senior operatives receive new passports and aliases
TURKEY is granting citizenship to senior operatives of a Hamas terrorist cell, The Daily Telegraph has learnt, raising fears that the Palestinian group will have greater freedom to plot attacks on Israeli citizens around the world.
Turkish identity papers seen by The Telegraph show that at least one of 12 senior Hamas members, who are using the country as a base of operations, has received Turkish citizenship and an 11-digit identity number.
According to a senior source, seven of the 12 operatives have received Turkish citizenship, as well as passports, while the other five are in the process of getting them. Some are said to be living under Turkish aliases.
Hamas is proscribed by the United States and the European Union as a terrorist organisation, while in Britain the group’s armed wing has been banned. Hamas says its main goal is to liberate Palestinians, overthrow Israel and establish an Islamic state.
Turkey insists the group is a legitimate political movement that has been democratically elected in Gaza.
A senior source in the region said: “These are not foot soldiers, but the most senior Hamas operatives outside of Gaza. [They] are actively raising funds and directing operatives to carry out attacks. The Turkish government gave in to pressure by Hamas to grant citizenship to its operatives, thereby allowing them to travel more freely, endangering other countries that have listed Hamas as a terror group.”
When contacted by The Telegraph,a Turkish spokesman declined to comment on what it described as baseless claims against Turkey by a foreign government. A senior Hamas official denied the allegations, insisting that its members did not operate outside the Palestinian territories and had no role in terrorism.
The disclosure is likely to alarm Israel and its Western allies, as the former has repeatedly warned Ankara about Hamas activities on Turkish soil.
Turkish passport holders are entitled to visa-free travel to Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Serbia, among other countries. But Turkey is lobbying to extend those privileges to EU countries, where Hamas is feared to be plotting attacks on Israeli citizens.
It comes after an investigation by The Telegraph revealed that Turkey was hosting some of the Hamas movement’s most senior figures and allowing them to plan attacks from Istanbul, including an assassination plot against the mayor of Jerusalem. Turkey has denied that it allows Hamas members to plot attacks in its territory.
Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas, is currently visiting Turkey, where he is due to hold meetings with senior figures – potentially including Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Turkish president.
The two men met last December in Istanbul and posed for a picture. “We will keep on supporting our brothers in Palestine,” Mr Erdogan said at the time.
Among those understood to have received Turkish citizenship is Zacharia Najib, the senior Hamas operative who oversaw a plot to assassinate the mayor of Jerusalem, as well as other Israeli public figures.
Jihad Ya’amor and Hisham Hijaz, two other senior Hamas officials, are also said to have gained Turkish passports.
In some cases, the families of the operatives have been granted citizenship. The operatives are considered as “active” rather than retired, and are working to raise funds for Hamas and lead its operations, sources said.
Nearly all of the 12 operatives were released and deported from Israel under the Gilad Shalit deal of 2011, in which 1,027 mostly Palestinian prisoners were set free in exchange for the Israeli soldier.