A Hamas military drill in the Gaza Strip in March 2018. Photo: Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa.

JNS.org – Israeli security forces arrested three Palestinian Authority residents on Tuesday night as part of a crackdown against a Hamas scheme used to transfer funds between the Gaza Strip and Judea and Samaria.

According to the Israeli military, senior Hamas terrorists in Gaza have been funneling money to operatives in Judea and Samaria through the Al-Haramain travel agency, which obscured the source of the funds through the use of a complex network of independent money changers.

The network used a method of offsetting debts between several independent money changers without registration in official banking systems.

According to the military, the funds were used to pay for organizational terrorist activity in Judea and Samaria and to pay the salaries of Hamas operatives there.

“The methods used by Hamas to transfer funds are familiar to us and we are working to thwart them,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement, vowing it would work to prevent civilian companies from cooperating with terrorist elements in Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip.