The Palestinians dug hundreds of tunnels underneath the borderline area with Egypt after Israel imposed a tight blockade on the Gaza Strip after Hamas seized control of it.
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According to Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, the head of Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories unit, the ISIS fighters enter the Gaza Strip through tunnels from Egypt and get medical care at Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis.
Hamas seized the Gaza Strip from forces loyal to the Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007.
Since the start of 2016, four Gazans have been handed death sentences after being accused of spying for Israel.
The group is not known to have killed its own members during peacetime, and the vague language used in the statement indicated Eshtewi was killed for reasons other than spying.
“We are shocked”, his sister, Buthaina, screamed over the phone.
The Gazan Health Ministry, for its part, denies the allegations, calling them “completely baseless” via Facebook.
Iran wasn’t discouraged by Hamas’ refusal, and has invited top Hamas leader Moussa Abu Marzouk to meet in Lebanon with Iranian and Hezbollah officials, Breitbart Jerusalem reported. An Israel minister said Egypt flooded tunnels on its border with the besieged Gaza Strip at the Jewish state’s request, before a spokeswoman yesterday said the remarks were misinterpreted. “Time isn’t working in Hamas’s favour”, says retired Colonel Yossi Langotzky, a geologist and former intelligence officer, who served in the past as an adviser on tunnel warfare to the Israeli General Staff. “They have no other operational option to strike Israel hard besides the tunnels and they are anxious that those may soon become obsolete”.
“We haven’t gotten anything from them since 2009, and everything [the Iranians] are saying is a lie”, senior Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk said, according to the London-based daily newspaper A-Sharq al-Awsat, which is owned by a member of the Saudi royal family.
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“If Hamas really cares about defending the rights of Palestinian people, it will act to punish and prevent the killing of any Palestinian in rogue procedures outside the semblance of law and justice”, said Bashi.
