Arabic newspaper (illustration)
Arabic newspaper (illustration)Flash 90

An Arab newspaper group in Judea and Samaria announced Thursday that it had stopped printing titles from the terrorist group Hamas, after receiving a series of warnings from the IDF.

The Al-Ayyam newspaper group has stopped printing and distributing Hamas newspapers Falastin, Al-Resala and Al-Istiqlal, its managing editor Abdel Nasser al-Najjar told AFP.

The decision followed an alleged phone call late Wednesday from the IDF, threatening to close Al-Ayyam's offices if it did not stop publishing the papers, al-Najjar said.

In an apparently unrelated incident, al-Najjar, who is the head of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, reportedly was injured earlier on Wednesday by Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces in Ramallah, along with two other Arab journalists as they took part in a protest of journalists. The injury was reported by the Judea and Samaria-based Arab news agency Wafa.

The IDF reportedlyraided Al-Ayyam's offices last month and issued similar orders to stop printing the terrorist organization's papers.

Al-Ayyam has been printing the three papers since April, when the reconciliation deal between Hamas and Fatah allowed the Gaza-based terrorist group to theoretically operate more freely in Judea and Samaria, a change which in practice has been largely blocked by the PA.

In a separate incident, Israeli police raided the Jerusalem studios of the PA official TV last Friday, briefly detaining three staff for questioning over incitement to violence.

The PA broadcasting authority in Ramallah responded, claiming "we have the right to broadcast from Jerusalem according to the Oslo Accords."

PA obligations to the 1993 Oslo Accords were cast aside last Monday as a unity government with Hamas was sworn in; the police crackdown may have been part of the Israeli response to the move.