ISIS Promises to Be a ‘Thorn in the Throat of Hamas’ and Israel
(Worthy News)– Islamic State insurgents threatened on Tuesday to turn the Gaza Strip into another of their Middle East fiefdoms, accusing Hamas, the organization that rules the Palestinian territory, of being insufficiently stringent about religious enforcement, the Jerusalem Post reported.
The video statement, issued from an Islamic State stronghold in Syria, was a rare public challenge to Hamas, which has been cracking down on jihadis in Gaza who oppose its truces with Israel and reconciliation with the US-backed rival Palestinian faction Fatah.
“We will uproot the state of the Jews (Israel) and you and Fatah, and all of the secularists are nothing and you will be over-run by our creeping multitudes,” said a masked Islamic State member in the message addressed to the “tyrants of Hamas”.
“The rule of sharia (Islamic law) will be implemented in Gaza, in spite of you. We swear that what is happening in the Levant today, and in particular the Yarmouk camp, will happen in Gaza,” he said, referring to Islamic State advances in Syria, including in a Damascus district founded by Palestinian refugees. –Source
“We will stay like a thorn in the throat of Hamas, and a thorn in the throat of Israel,” said Abu al-Ayna al-Ansari, the spokesman for the groups supporting the Islamic State, using a nom de guerre for security reasons.
While it is hard to gauge their numbers, the latest round of clashes is a sign of the extremists’ growing potency. Nathan Thrall, an analyst with the International Crisis Group, estimates that their ranks have swelled from several hundred a few years ago to a few thousand today among Gaza’s 1.8 million residents. —Source