BICOM

The IDF intercepted a small boat smuggling weapon-making materials to Gaza, the Shin Bet security service announced yesterday.

The motorboat was intercepted by Israeli forces after it set sail from the Sinai towards Gaza. The boat was carrying 50 cans of liquid fibreglass. The three men on-board told Shin Bet investigators that the fibreglass was to be transferred to Hamas’s al-Qassam Brigades to make rockets and mortars.

The smugglers reportedly told the Shin Bet that Hamas was also smuggling civilian products which it sells to the general public at a profit.

The interception of the boat is another sign that Hamas is attempting to rearm and rebuild rocket stocks after depleting them in its summer conflict with Israel. Other signs include regular test-firings of new rockets from Gaza into the Mediterranean Sea.

Egypt has cracked down on smuggling from the Sinai Peninsula into Gaza as part of its attempt to regain control over the desert area, while it battles ISIS-affiliated jihadi groups there. On Wednesday, Sky News Arabic quoted Egyptian sources as saying that a Hamas commander was killed in north Sinai in an Egyptian airstrike on a jihadi outpost.

Al-Bawaba reports that the commander, Abdel-Elah Mohamed Saeed Qeshta, was targeted by Egypt while he was meeting with Sinai-based jihadists.

The Hamas commander’s family denied the reports, instead claiming that he had actually been killed in neighbouring Libya after joining an Islamist group fighting the Libyan army in Darnah.

Egypt’s relationship with Hamas has deteriorated since the country outlawed Hamas’s military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, in January , claiming it was involved in involvement in terrorist attacks in Egypt.