Al Qaeda has forged ties with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, given the many Palestinians who went to Afghanistan and rose to important positions within that organization. While Azzam was neither a member of Fatah or Hamas, he funded the latter during the formative years. However, according to a leading specialist om Al Qaeda, Palestinian groups were reluctant to co-operate with Al Qaeda because of its habit of absorbing any organization that gets to close to it. He added “For example - Look at how the Egyptian groups were absorbed and Osama gained almost total control of them”. There are several charities based in Sudan and Pakistan Islamic Jihad. For example the intelligence community has monitored one such charity in Islamabad in order to determine whether the funds were transferred from it to Hamas.
The Israeli security and intelligence services - Shib Bet and the Mossad - believe that Al Qaeda has infiltrated the Occupied Territories and that it is only a matter of time before it mounts an operation against Israel. A number of Palestinians mainly from Jordan ( including until his detention in March 2002, its chief of operations Abu Zubaydah) serve in Al Qaeda. Records seized in Afghanistan in late 2001 , reveal that it has been training Palestinians. However up till now , only Hindawi a Palestinian whose family comes from Halhul and Nabil Ukal , a 27 year old Palestinian from the Jabaliya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip have been arrested on suspicion of being members of Al Qaeda.
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