BICOM

ISIS in the Sinai Peninsula has issued a threat against Hamas in a new execution video. The video was released on social media on Wednesday and shows Abu Kazem al-Maqdisi, identified by the US-based monitoring agency Site, urging Islamic followers to attack Hamas positions in Gaza.

Maqdisi, originally from Gaza and now an ISIS leader in Sinai, said: “[Hamas] uses its smuggled weapons to empower that which was not revealed by God. It also fights supporters of the Islamic State in Gaza and the Sinai and prevents the migration of these supporters from Gaza to the Sinai.”

He accused Hamas of abandoning the Islamic path, capitulating to tyranny, and focusing exclusively on the Gaza Strip, thus abandoning the rest of Palestine.

Towards the end of the video, Maqdisi declares that Musa Abu Zamat is a Hamas collaborator who allegedly smuggled weapons for them. Zamat is then executed by Muhammad al-Dajani, a former member of Hamas’s military wing.

Dajani’s family said in a statement: “We were surprised by this terrible event in which a group belonging to the Islamic State’s Sinai offshoot killed a freedom fighter who was a member of Hamas’ military wing. We are proud that many of our sons are members of the Al-Qassam Brigades, and therefore decry and condemn this despicable murder.”

Hamas spokesperson Salah Bardawil called the video “a Zionist production in which Arab tools participate to distort the resistance… this is what the Zionist intelligence agency and its lackeys have been striving for”.

Friction between Hamas and ISIS has been ongoing for nearly a year with both groups trying to strengthen their relative positions. Last month more than 30 missiles were fired into Israel from Gaza. Most of them launched by Islamic Jihad or other Salafi-jihadist groups. In order to maintain the recent reconciliation agreement with rival Fatah, Hamas has arrested and tortured Salafi jihadi extremists thought to be responsible for the missile attacks.

Yesterday, Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that “Israel knows exactly which operatives were behind the launch” of last week’s wave of missile attacks. He said the government in the Gaza Strip “must take control of the situation”.