Failed Tel Aviv suicide bombing planned by Hamas Turkish headquarters, new report says
The failed suicide bombing in Tel Aviv in August was carried out under the direction of Hamas headquarters in Turkey, according to the findings of a joint Israel Police and Israel Security Agency investigation published on Tuesday.
Indictments against eight terrorists arrested during the investigation were set to be filed later in the day.
According to authorities, the eight maintained contact with Abada Bilal, a senior Hamas official in Turkey who directed the execution of the attack.
The investigation also found that one of the terrorists traveled several times to Turkey, where Hamas provided him with funding for explosives and training on assembling bombs.
On Aug. 18, a powerful explosion rocked Tel Aviv’s Lehi Street.
One passerby was moderately wounded by shrapnel, and damage was caused to buildings and property.
The “military wings” of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist groups claimed responsibility for the attack, with the former vowing to carry out suicide attacks “as long as Israel continues its massacre and policy of assassinations in Gaza.”
The investigation found that the bomber, Jaafar Muna, who was killed in the blast, was a Hamas operative from Nablus.
Authorities said on Tuesday that an additional indictment was filed against a resident of Beit Hanina in eastern Jerusalem, who transported Muna from the Israeli capital to Tel Aviv.
During the investigation, security forces uncovered Hamas infrastructure in the Nablus area and seized two ready-to-use TATP (triacetone triperoxide) explosive devices weighing about 4 kilograms (9 pounds), along with approximately 4 kilograms of TATP intended for further attacks. Additionally, 111,000 shekels ($29,668) that had been transferred from Hamas HQ in Turkey to the local terror cell were confiscated.
“The findings of this investigation clearly indicate the establishment of Hamas headquarters in Turkey and their extensive efforts abroad to incite violence and carry out bombings in Israel,” according to Israeli authorities.
In July, Israeli security forces foiled a significant terrorist plot orchestrated by Hamas operatives in Turkey and involving students from Birzeit University in Samaria.
The operation, a collaborative effort of the ISA, Israel Defense Forces and a specialized police unit, led to the arrest of several suspects and the seizure of weapons and funds earmarked for the attack.
Earlier this year, Israeli authorities thwarted a large-scale suicide bombing attack planned by Hamas’s terrorist headquarters in Turkey, the ISA revealed in June.
The agency said its forces had captured Anas Shurman—a Palestinian originally from Tulkarem who lives in Jordan—during a March 15 raid in the central Samaria terrorist stronghold of Nablus.
Interrogations revealed that three months earlier, Shurman had been recruited to carry out a suicide bombing by Imad Abid, a Hamas operative living in Turkey who was born in Judea and Samaria.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has long harbored members of Hamas. In 2022, the terrorist organization marked the 10th anniversary of the official establishment of its offices in Istanbul.
The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, in a 2021 report, said that Hamas’s headquarters in Istanbul has directed hundreds of terrorist attacks against Israelis and laundered millions of dollars.
In April, Ankara invited Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’s political bureau who was subsequently assassinated by Israel in Tehran, to stay in the country, praising him as a “leader of the Palestinian struggle.”
