According to the report, the groups were set to discuss ways to end divisions and to unite their ranks in the face of “Israeli aggression”, stressing that unity was necessary to rebuild Gaza and end the Israeli blockade on the Strip.
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Hamas, said Sunday that it has killed one of its own commanders over unnamed “moral and behavioral violations”.
Sources told various media outlets that Mahmoud Eshtawi, a member of Hamas’s military wing, the al-Qassam brigades, was a senior official accused of spying for Israel.
In late 2014, as part of an attempt to restore peace in its restive northern Sinai region, Egypt began setting up a buffer zone on its border with Gaza and destroyed hundreds of tunnels.
On February 6, Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz said that the tunnels were flooded at the request of Tel Aviv, adding that “security coordination” between Cairo and Tel Aviv is at its best.
Responding to the announcement, Sari Bashi, the Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, called it “another extra-judicial killing by forces linked to Hamas”.
According to Muheisen, another factor that could serve to prevent a new war is Hamas’ awareness of the ongoing suffering of the Gaza Strip’s roughly 1.9 million inhabitants.
Mukhaimar Abu Saada, the professor of political science at Al-Azhar University in Gaza, agrees with the other analysts that the facts on the ground are not suitable for launching a new war on the Gaza Strip.
Gazans have also used tunnels along the Egyptian border for smuggling.
In September 2015, Egypt carried out digging work that Palestinians say led to the flooding of the last remaining tunnels there.
Another member of the Iran-backed terrorist group Hamas was killed in a tunnel collapse, The Times of Israel reported Tuesday.
During the 2014 conflict, more than 2,322 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip – the vast majority of them civilians – and 11,000 others injured, while much of the strip’s vital infrastructure was destroyed by 51 days of fierce Israeli bombardment.
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Gaza’s tunnel networks are notoriously unsafe.
