Al‑Ribat Communications and Artistic Productions

Al-Aqsa TV (Arabic: قناة الأقصى) is the official television broadcaster of Hamas, the de facto governing authority in parts of the Gaza Strip, operated through Al-Ribat Communications and Artistic Productions, also rendered in some sources as Al-Ribat Media and Artistic Production Company. Named after the Al-Aqsa compound in Jerusalem and modelled on the Lebanese Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Manar television channel, Al-Aqsa TV began broadcasting in the Gaza Strip in January 2006 and was established by Fathi Ahmad Hammad, then a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and later Hamas Interior Minister in the Gaza Strip from 2009 to 2014.

Media assets

Television: Al-Aqsa TV, the principal television broadcaster of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, broadcasting news, religious programming, ideological content, children’s programming and entertainment in Arabic via satellite, online and digital distribution channels following repeated Israeli strikes on Hamas-affiliated physical infrastructure

Radio: Al-Aqsa Voice Radio, the broadcaster’s affiliated Hamas-run radio outlet in Gaza, historically operating as part of the wider Al-Aqsa/Al-Ribat media network

Publishing: Al-Risala / The Message, an associated Hamas-aligned publication historically linked to the same media ecosystem; treated as an associated publication rather than as a separately verified current Al-Aqsa TV broadcast asset in the absence of direct current-cycle SMM confirmation of its operational status

Ownership and governance

Al-Aqsa TV is controlled by Hamas through Al-Ribat Communications and Artistic Productions, with the movement’s leadership exercising authority over senior personnel appointments and editorial direction. The broadcaster was founded by Fathi Ahmad Hammad, a senior Hamas official, member of the Hamas Political Bureau, member of the Palestinian Legislative Council since 2006 representing Beit Lahia in northern Gaza, and Hamas Interior Minister in the Gaza Strip between 2009 and 2014. Hammad has been publicly identified in earlier baseline reporting as Chairman of Al-Ribat Communications and Artistic Productions. His current operational status in that role during the 2025/26 SMM review period could not be independently verified by SMM in light of the continuing disruption to Hamas leadership structures during the Gaza war.

There are no public records of board appointments, statutes or governance procedures for Al-Ribat Communications and Artistic Productions, and the broadcaster’s internal management structure remains opaque. The Palestinian Legislative Council, to which the broadcaster’s leadership has historically been linked, has been largely inactive since the 2007 Fatah-Hamas political schism, and no functioning external governance review body operates over Hamas-controlled media in Gaza.

The 2025/26 cycle’s defining external governance context was shaped by the continuing Israeli campaign against Hamas leadership and infrastructure. The killings of Yahya Sinwar in October 2024, Mohammad Sinwar in May 2025 and Izz al-Din al-Haddad in May 2026, alongside the July 2024 killing of Hamas political bureau head Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, produced rapid turnover in Hamas’s senior leadership environment. No structural restructuring introducing arm’s-length governance for Al-Aqsa TV was identified during the 2025/26 SMM review.

Source of funding and budget

Al-Aqsa TV has been described by SMM-retained expert sources as operating on an estimated annual budget of approximately US$5 million, based on consultations with seven local media professionals and experts conducted between December 2023 and April 2024. According to these SMM-retained sources, most of the broadcaster’s funding originates from foreign donors sympathetic to Hamas’s political and ideological objectives, with the precise identities and channels of these contributions remaining undisclosed. The broadcaster does not operate on significant independent commercial or advertising revenue.

No standalone 2025/26 budget disclosure for Al-Aqsa TV or Al-Ribat Communications and Artistic Productions was identified by SMM during the cycle, and no audited public financial reports or independent oversight mechanisms exist for the broadcaster’s operations. This absence of transparent disclosure is consistent with the broader opacity of Hamas’s institutional financial arrangements.

Al-Aqsa TV’s broadcast infrastructure has been repeatedly targeted or disrupted during Israeli military operations in Gaza, with the broadcaster and associated Hamas media operations relying on satellite, online and dispersed distribution to maintain output where possible. The October 2025 ceasefire framework reduced large-scale fighting for a period but did not remove operational risks: by mid-2026, Israeli strikes and military operations in Gaza continued, Israeli forces controlled more than half of the territory, and the population was concentrated in coastal areas where Hamas retained de facto control.

Editorial independence

Al-Aqsa TV exhibits no hallmarks of editorial autonomy and operates as an instrument of Hamas’s political, religious and military objectives. According to SMM-retained expert sources and local and international media analysts consulted during prior cycles, the broadcaster’s news programming overtly promotes the Hamas agenda and frequently disseminates content described by local observers, human rights monitors and international watchdogs as incendiary, ideologically charged and, in some cases, antisemitic. Senior Hamas officials, including Fathi Hammad, have used Al-Aqsa-linked platforms to issue inflammatory statements. The broadcaster has been designated by the United States Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control since 2010.

The 2025/26 cycle did not produce any structural editorial reform for Al-Aqsa TV. There is no statutory framework regulating the broadcaster’s content or mandating editorial standards under Hamas governance, and no independent oversight mechanism exists to assess or enforce journalistic integrity. The broadcaster continued to function as a propaganda instrument explicitly aligned with Hamas’s political, religious and military objectives.

AI and digital policy

Al-Aqsa TV has not published a public-facing institutional AI governance policy, and the broader operational context of Hamas-controlled media in Gaza is shaped by survival pressures, infrastructure destruction and political-military control rather than by digital-governance frameworks. The broadcaster’s principal digital and technical adaptations during the cycle have been resilience-focused, including satellite, online and social-media distribution to maintain operational continuity following the destruction or disruption of physical broadcasting infrastructure. No cycle-window AI-tool deployment or generative-AI editorial integration was identified at Al-Aqsa TV during the SMM 2025/26 review, and no public framework governing the use of generative AI or AI-enabled systems in editorial decision-making, verification, newsroom production, archiving, distribution or audience-facing content has been published.

Classification rationale

Al-Aqsa TV remains classified as Captured Public (CaPu) for the 2026 cycle. The broadcaster operates as the official television outlet of Hamas, the de facto governing authority in parts of the Gaza Strip, with editorial direction, senior personnel appointments and operational management aligned directly to Hamas’s political, religious and military leadership through Al-Ribat Communications and Artistic Productions, and there is no statutory editorial-independence guarantee, independent oversight body or arm’s-length editorial firewall protecting the broadcaster’s output from political-military direction. The broadcaster is funded through opaque Hamas-linked institutional arrangements, with SMM-retained expert sources identifying foreign donors sympathetic to Hamas’s objectives as the principal funding source, no significant independent commercial revenue, no standalone 2025/26 budget disclosure and no audited financial reporting identified during the review. The 2025/26 cycle produced no governance, funding or editorial reform sufficient to move Al-Aqsa TV out of the CaPu category: the broadcaster continued to function as a Hamas propaganda instrument during a cycle marked by continuing Israeli strikes and military operations in Gaza, the October 2025 ceasefire framework and its subsequent fragility, the targeted killing of senior Hamas leaders, persistent territorial fragmentation between Gaza and the West Bank, and the absence of any structural editorial-independence safeguards.

June 2026