A posting from what claims to be a newly formed ISIS affiliate in Gaza claimed responsibility for firing rockets into Israel tonight.
The IDF reported that two rockets were launched at southern Israel from Gaza. Sirens went off in Ashkelon and Netivot, but no injuries were reported.
Israel struck three Hamas targets in Gaza after the rockets were fired.
The group posting a claim of responsibility online calls itself the Omar Brigades, and said the rockets were retaliation for Hamas killing an ISIS supporter during a Tuesday shootout.
Hamas got props from ISIS in an e-book as “an organisation whose goal is to liberate Palestine entirely and to leave no trace of Israel on the map.” However, ISIS stresses that they and al-Qaeda disagree with Hamas participating in elections because “democracy is shirk (polytheism).” The book labels this a “difference in politics” that has led to fights between the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda/ISIS, and called the Hamas-Israel battles, from the use of Qassam rockets to underground tunnels, “a testing ground for the Mujahideen.”
“Hamas’s military arm, the Izzadeen Qassam Brigades, have men (Muraabiteen) who are guarding the frontlines all the time. There are also other armed groups in Gaza such as the Iranian backed al-Jihadi Islami (‘the Islamic Jihad), and Majlis al-Shura (a group allied to the Islamic State). They fire rockets into Israel, sometimes even without the permission of the governing Hamas, which causes Hamas to have some bitterness against them when it makes a ceasefire with Israel.” It says that some members of Hamas, upset with Shiite Iran’s backing of the terror group, “have decided to shift their loyalty to the Islamic State.”
Today’s statement from the Omar Brigades said that despite “our commitment to avoid any internal battle, and to keep our weapon directed to the Jews… Hamas was quick to shed the blood” of their compatriot for “championing the mujahideen of the Islamic State.”
They said Hamas “came to his home with a number of jeeps loaded with masked gunmen and accompanied by ambulance, which confirms the existence of a deliberate intention to kill him, and then broke into his house and took him in front of his family unarmed, and then executed him in cold blood, shot him in different parts of his body.”
Then, the pro-ISIS group said, Hamas went on TV and “showed pictures of weapons, claiming they found in his home, and that they intended to fight Hamas, knowing that it is rare to find a house in Gaza without arms.”
They accused Hamas of killing the ISIS supporter “to please the Jews.”
“We are continuing with our jihad against the Jews, the enemies of God and no one will be able to deter us,” the Brigades said.
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