Alwaght- Quoting General Yoav Mordechai, the Israeli Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, the Israeli radio claimed on May 14, 2017, that some ISIS terrorist group’s fighters a couple of days earlier had entered Palestine’s Gaza Strip through underground tunnels to take part in military exercises inside the besieged territory. 

Earlier, the same Israeli official made the same allegations on February 9, 2016, arguing that due to difficulty with providing weapons for Izz ad-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military arm, Hamas admitted the injured ISIS fighters to Gaza’s Khan Yunis city’s hospitals and in exchange received money and weapons from the terrorist group.

The allegations of links between Hamas and the terror organization ISIS were not only made by the authorities from the Israeli regime. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy in a report titled Hamas and Islamic State: Growing Cooperation in the Sinai, published on December 15, 2015, claimed that Shadi al-Menai, who is the chief of ISIS’ Sinai affiliate and earlier member of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, during his prolonged visit to Gaza kept close links with Hamas military wing in order to receive military assistance in Sinai from Hamas and in return provide the Palestinian movement with logistic supports.

“Hamas officials denied the initial report that a visit was taking place, however,” the report continued.

Itself considered by many analysts as a real pattern of state terrorism, the Israeli regime has always tried to buy legitimacy for its anti-Palestinian wars by claiming that the Palestinian fighters who defended their land against Tel Aviv’s attacks were terrorists.

Now the Salafist groups’ terrorist attacks across the world have provided the Israeli regime with an opportunity to compare the Palestinian anti-occupation fighters with the terrorists and so paint the rightful Palestinian anti-Israeli battle as an act of terrorism.

The accusations of Hamas’ having links with ISIS terror group, which have been under promotion for two years by the Israeli officials, are repeated by the Western study institutes. A couple of points could be noted concerning the issue:

1. The terror groups like ISIS found the Palestinian refugee camps in Syria good places for recruitment of fighters due to poor financial and cultural conditions. They have been considerably successful in their recruitment processes in the refugee camps. Actually, the Palestinians, like others from Arab countries, have joined the body of the terrorist group. However, there should be a line drawn between the Palestinian members of ISIS group and the legitimate resistant fighters from Hamas who stand in the face of the Israeli occupation of their territory.

2. Another reason stirring accusations of Hamas contacts with ISIS is defection of some Hamas fighters and their joining ISIS. The fact is that these members of Hamas were sent away from the movement’s body due to their highly radical thoughts. They moved to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. Normally, they can visit Gaza due to their Palestinian nationality, and this by no way justifies claims of ISIS-Hamas links.

3. The Bedouin tribes in Gaza and Sinai have friendly and close relations with one another. Odds are that some members of these tribes have joined the terror group ISIS. For example, Damghash is a tribe, and Momtaz Damghash, the chief commander of the Gaza-based Jaysh al-Islam, has pledged allegiance to ISIS and now is present in Sinai. He kept family contacts with his tribe. Some of his relatives are Hamas members.

4. Hamas forces several times clashed with ISIS fighters in Gaza and Syria-based Palestinian Yarmouk Refugee Camp, as ISIS has announced Hamas movement as “apostate.”

By Alwaght