Daesh militants & Israel effectively join forces in besieging Gaza

It is an open secret that the Zionist entity is in league with US-Saudi backed terrorists trying to destabilize Muslim countries, especially the macabre cannibalistic outfit, Daesh.

These birds of the same feather are now baring their fangs against the oppressed Palestinian people, in a bid to sabotage the fresh round of Intefadha that started in December following US President Donald Trump’s devilish declaration of the occupied city of Bayt al-Moqaddas as capital of the illegal Zionist entity.

Now we have a report in this regard by Hamza Abu at-Tarabesh for Electronic Intefadah, titled: “Daesh militants & Israel effectively join forces in besieging Gaza.”

Daesh militants are wreaking havoc near the Sinai Peninsula where they are doing Israel’s work of terrorizing Palestinians and preventing goods from reaching Gaza.

When Rami Fawda heard that the Rafah crossing was finally due to open, his reaction was one of relief mixed with anxiety.

The relief was because the 44-year-old engineer lives in Ankara, Turkey, where he has worked for 13 years and needed to get back. He had come to Gaza in the summer to see his family, for only the second time since he first moved, but got stuck, trying but failing to secure passage through Rafah – the boundary between Gaza and Egypt – three times.

Fawda then looked set to leave in October, when the Egyptian authorities announced a scheduled opening of Rafah following the fanfare of newly concluded preliminary unity negotiations between the Palestinian parties Fatah and Hamas in Cairo. But that opportunity too was scuppered, this time by an attack on an Egyptian army checkpoint in the Sinai that claimed 30 lives, including six soldiers, and was attributed to the Daesh group.

That 15 October attack was the reason for Fawda’s anxiety. In recent months, all-too-rare openings – the Rafah crossing has been functional for only around 30 days in all of 2017 – have time and again been canceled as a result of militant attacks in the Sinai.

The net effect means Sinai militants, many of whom have declared loyalty to Daesh, can hold two million Palestinians in Gaza hostage with its actions.

Fawda was luckier in November, but only just. The crossing was opened on 18 November for three days, and he managed to secure a permit to leave. Had he left it a week, when Cairo announced another three-day opening, he would have been disappointed again. On 24 November, gunmen stormed a mosque in the Sinai, killing more than 300 people. The Rafah crossing remained shut until last week.

From the Egyptian side, Fawda spoke of security checks and a huge military presence at the crossing. Egypt, he told The Electronic Intifada when reached by phone, has the “same fear we have.” Salafi militants in the Sinai, known since 2014 Daesh – Sinai Province, have in effect joined forces with Israel in “besieging Gaza,” Fawda said.

They have certainly found a way to pressure both Egypt and Hamas. Hamas, driven by the need to open Gaza to the outside world, has entered into a series of agreements with Cairo to help Egypt battle what has become a full-blown insurgency in the Sinai.

These include building a buffer zone along the Gaza-Sinai boundary and arresting Sinai militants in Gaza and have already caused ruptures in a long uneasy relationship between Hamas and Salafis in Gaza itself that has flared on several occasions over the past 10 years.

Hamas has paid a price for improving its relationship with Egypt, according to Mukhaimer Abu Saada, a political analyst and lecturer with Al-Azhar University in Gaza. “Once Hamas clamped down on Salafi militants, Daesh in the Sinai began retaliating, threatening Hamas operations there, including its commercial interests and weapons smuggling,” Abu Saada said.

The conflict in Sinai has thus become a broader struggle, one that directly has an impact on Gaza. Israel is largely seen in Gaza as the main beneficiary of enmity between Daesh and Hamas.

And tensions beget tensions. Hamas security forces arrested suspected Daesh militants in the Tal as-Sultan area in Rafah as a response to the first suicide bombing claimed by Daesh in Gaza during August. That in turn came after Hamas clamped down on infiltration in and out of Gaza.

Since then, the number of arrests has kept rising. Ashraf Issa, an officer in Gaza’s Hamas-run internal security service, told The Electronic Intefadha there are now 550 suspected Daesh militants in jail in Gaza.

But that in turn could threaten some of Hamas’ vital interests, not least supply lines through the Sinai, long used as a smuggling route for all kinds of goods and necessities, as well as weapons and munitions.

The main targets for Daesh in Sinai are Egyptian. Notably, on 24 November, armed men opened fire in a mosque near El-Arish in the Sinai during Friday prayers, the worst such attack in Egypt’s modern history.

Daesh has also been very active in the boundary area between Gaza and Egypt. In late October, three Palestinians working near the boundary were kidnapped. They were beaten and interrogated for some 12 hours in Egyptian territory and then released, according to Abd al-Rahman Odeh, a Hamas security official, when it became clear that none of them were members of Hamas.

Then, later in October, Tawfiq Abu Naim, the head of Hamas’ internal security service, was wounded in a car explosion that Hamas called a failed assassination attempt. Two members of Salafi groups in Gaza were arrested after the incident. A source close to the investigation, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Hamas blames Daesh for the operation.

Prominent Hamas figures had earlier suggested Israel was behind the operation. Certainly, Salafi militants had motive. Since Abu Naim’s appointment, hundreds of Salafis in Gaza have been arrested. Abu Naim is also responsible for security at the Gaza-Egypt boundary where several dozen security checkpoints have been erected over the past months.

Nevertheless, there is clearly a confluence of interests between the Sinai branch of Daesh and Israel in their battle with Hamas. Some in Hamas and analysts have suggested direct collusion involving Israel and Daesh. Both had an interest in seeing the assassination of Abu Naim, according to Hussam al-Dajani, a politics lecturer at Ummah University in Gaza.

“Israel wanted to eliminate someone who is active in the resistance; Daesh wanted to take revenge for the restrictions they are facing in Gaza,” al-Dajani said.

Daesh operations in the Sinai have also contributed, if not been the main reason, for the delay in the long-promised opening of Rafah crossing. There is even talk of moving the actual crossing point closer to the coast to make it harder to attack.

According to Ashraf Juma, a Fatah legislator, there is no decision on this yet. “We submitted the request to Egypt and it was discussed, but haven’t received any confirmation yet,” he said.

The opening of Rafah crossing is crucial and it remains Hamas’ Achilles’ heel. It’s the only crossing into and out of Gaza that is likely to be permanently opened any time soon and for any reasonable use.

Israel imposed a closure on Gaza more than 10 years ago that Cairo mostly has gone along with.

That closure has had dramatic economic and social effects on this narrow, overpopulated coastal strip of land that has long been on the brink of humanitarian disaster and which the United Nations deemed would be uninhabitable by 2020.

As Hamas has already shown, it is willing to take difficult decisions, short of surrendering its arms, to ensure that Gaza opens to the world again. This includes formally ending sole rule over Gaza as well as antagonizing Salafi militants in Gaza and the Sinai.

Egypt – outside cooperation to quell the Sinai insurgency – has an interest in this, too. If done correctly, allowing travel through Rafah could boost Egypt’s poorly performing economy by opening up a new market for Egyptian goods while providing a focus for the Sinai economy outside smuggling and tourism.

But spoilers lie everywhere, not least among the Daesh of Sinai.

AS/ME