The Islamic State branch in the Sinai Peninsula called on its followers to attack Hamas, in a gruesome execution video issued on Wednesday.
The speaker in the 22-minute video, referred to as Abu Kazem al-Maqdisi, originally from Gaza and now an Islamic State preacher in the Sinai Peninsula, 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”.
In the video, al-Maqdisi calls on viewers to target the security headquarters and courthouses of Hamas in Gaza.
The video concludes with the execution of one of its members, shot in the head for smuggling weapons to Hamas and a declaration that a man previously among the ranks of Islamic State named Musa Abu Zamat was sentenced to death for “smuggling weapons to the apostates of the Izz a-Din al-Qassam Brigades [Hamas’s military wing]”.
It has been reported that the shooter has been identified as Muhammad al-Dajani, a former member of Hamas’s military branch in Gaza. His family released a statement criticising his actions in the video.
Recently, Hamas has increased security along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt in an effort to gain favour with the Egyptian government. Hamas has long been accused by Egypt of aiding Islamic State’s insurgency in the country’s North Sinai region.
Hamas, a terror organisation dedicated to Israel’s destruction, has ruled Gaza for a decade but has faced criticism by Salafist jihadist groups for not being radical enough.
The video cites Hamas’s crackdown on Islamist militant groups in Gaza and their failure to prevent the U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital as reasons for attacking the group
A Hamas spokesman, Salah Bardawil, dismissed the Islamic State video on Twitter as a “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”.
