AhlulBayt News Agency

source : Themedialine
Sunday

26 February 2017

4:19:55 PM
814280

Hamas decries Egyptian military for tunnel destruction

Hamas condemned Cairo’s “dangerous ways of dealing with people in Gaza Strip” after the Egyptian army detonated another tunnel under the Rafah border Saturday.

(AhlulBayt News Agency) - The explosion killed three and injured five others according to a statement issued by the movement’s Gaza City office.

Egypt’s continuing operations against Hamas tunneling and Hamas’ condemnation of the Egyptian military both demonstrate that talks held last month between Cairo security figures and Hamas’ leadership failed to resolve their disagreements.

The statement comes just weeks after the election of Yahya Sinwar, considered to be on the militant end of the spectrum, as Hamas’ leader in the Gaza Strip

“This is the first time a military man is taking over the political bureau of Hamas since the organization was founded a quarter of a century ago,” Mukhaimer Abusada, a political scientist at Al-Azhar University-Gaza told The Media Line. “Sinwar’s election means that the military wing – the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam brigades – is taking over the movement.”

Since his release from an Israeli prison in the 2011, Sinwar, 54, has organized the digging of smuggling tunnels under the Egyptian border and has been involved in re-arming the organization.-

Before Sinwar’s election, ordinary Gazans were hopeful about the economic benefits of a possible rapprochement between Hamas and Egypt.

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