Sami Moubayed, Syrian historian and university professor, author of ‘Under the Black Flag: At the Frontier of the New Jihad’
Coordinated back-to-back suicide attacks ripped through the Gaza Strip on August 28 2019, targeting two Hamas checkpoints. The first was in al-Dahdouh, west of Gaza, and the second struck at a checkpoint in the Sheikh Ajleen area, killing three policemen. Hamas responded with a crackdown on Palestinian extremists, all suspected of being sympathizers with the Islamic State (ISIS).[1] It was soon announced that one of the two bombers was the defected son of a top commander in Hamas, now working with the ISIS branch in Gaza City.[2]
Fertile Ground for Extremism
Gazan extremists have shown admiration for ISIS but have come short of pledging an oath of allegiance to the international terror group—until now. Better known as the Omar Hadid Brigade, they have been fairly small and low-profile, first emerging in an organized manner just months after the self-proclaimed caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the birth of his emirate from Mosul in northern Iraq, back in July 2014. He won the minds and hearts of extremists on all four corners of the globe, and residents of Gaza were no exception.
Gaza hosts a giant mix of Palestinian refugees who fled to the area from villages occupied by Israelis. They were already suffering from a multitude of crippling economic problems, combined with an inefficient and increasingly autocratic Hamas government, and a harsh blockade imposed by Israel. Gazans live in extreme poverty and some saw promise in Salafism and the extremist doctrine of al-Qaeda.
According to the World Bank, the Gaza Strip’s economy is growing by only 0.5% annually, with half of the workforce registered as unemployed.[3] Sixty percent of people looking for jobs are in their early 20s, making them potential recruits for regional jihadi networks. Poverty stands at an all-time high, approximately 80% among its two million inhabitants, although Hamas officials insist that it is no more than 39%.[4]
Residents of the overcrowded strip also suffer from irregular access to electricity and clean drinking water, making the area, according to the United Nations, “unlivable” by 2020.[5] Since Hamas has proven incapable of providing basic services to people, they have begun to look for even more radical alternatives.
Birth of an ‘Islamic Emirate’
The first elements of al-Qaeda in Gaza emerged back in 2009, via a Salafi doctor named Abdul Latif Moussa (aka Abu Anwar al-Makdissi). From the pulpit of Ibn Taymiyah Mosque in the city of Rafah, he declared the birth of a so-called Islamic emirate in Gaza along with a militia called Jund Ansar Allah, before being killed by Hamas police.[6] His supporters, or what remained of them, later turned to ISIS in May 2015, seeing salvation and promise in their version of Islam. ISIS was making world headlines at the time, ruling over territory as large as Great Britain and a population of approximately six million people, bestriding the deserts of Syria and Iraq.
From their capital in al-Raqqa on the Euphrates River, they had all the trappings of statehood including a full-fledged army, a highly competent intelligence service, a national flag, a functioning civil service, and a treasury oozing with oil money. Affiliate groups were emerging in Nigeria, Libya, Egypt, Lebanon, and with little surprise, in Gaza City as well.
It was fairly easy for them to start operations in Gaza, feeding off the regular flow of smuggled arms coming in from the Sinai, where another ISIS affiliate, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, was already operating. The weapons that were reaching Egyptian and Palestinian jihadists were leftovers of the Libyan battlefield against Muammar Gaddafi, smuggled through a complex network of around 1,200 tunnels.
Getting al-Baghdadi’s Attention
To attract Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s attention, Palestinian jihadists named their group after Omar Hadid, an Iraqi Islamist like al-Baghdadi who was killed in the battles of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, in December 2004. Hadid had gained notoriety in his native city during the late 1990s when he attacked shops that sold alcohol, grabbing whisky and wine bottles and pouring them into the streets.
Saddam Hussein ordered his assassination, sending him into hiding for years, until his re-emergence as a member of al-Qaeda after the US occupation of Iraq in 2003.[7] Hadid hailed from the powerful Dulaim tribe of Iraq, making him a relative of al-Baghdadi’s third wife Saja al-Dulaimi.[8] The name succeeded in attracting al-Baghdadi’s attention.
OHB Attacks Increase
Initially, the Omar Hadid Brigades’ operations were rather amateurish, explaining why few people took them seriously. However, the group increasingly stepped up their attacks, both in frequency and scope. In late 2014, an affiliate group claimed responsibility for an attack on a French cultural center in Gaza because it was promoting music and theatre—two taboos for the Islamic State.[9] In May 2015, they claimed a rocket attack on the city of Ashdod, followed by two attacks on northern Israel in June 2015, with no casualties.[10] In 2015, they blew up the car of Hamas official Saber Siam, threatening to come after other Hamas officials, one by one.[11]
One month later, they distributed leaflets in Occupied East Jerusalem, threatening to kill Palestinian Christians. More recently, Hamas claims that ISIS was behind the October 2017 assassination attempt of Tawfik Abu Naim, the head of internal security in Gaza, and the March 2018 attempt on the life of Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah.
Magnet for Hamas Deserters
The OHB was an immediate magnet for a number of Hamas deserters who blamed the Palestinian group of becoming too preoccupied with running a failed state and looking for regional sponsors, thus falling back on their original duties in waging a holy war against Israel. Months before the emergence of OHB in 2015, Hamas had toyed with the idea of a long-term truce with Israel, greatly infuriating and alienating hardliners within the group.
Hamas tried to contain the problem of extremist youth by diverting those who joined its military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigade, into the police. But these were men who wanted to be martyrs, and irregular pay from Hamas state institutions only accelerated the rate of defections. This was particularly true after Iranian money stopped coming into Gaza, in light of more pressing expenses on the Syrian battlefield. ISIS promised to deliver where Hamas had failed, saying that their ultimate objective was to eradicate the state of Israel and set up an Islamic government in Gaza, ruled by the laws of Islamic shari’a.[12] “We will stay like a thorn in the throat of Hamas,” said Abu Ayna Ansari, spokesman of the brigade, “…and a thorn in the throat of Israel”.[13]
A Dangerous Threat
The high concentration of Hamas defectors made OHB a particularly dangerous threat to Hamas. These men knew the routes of secret Hamas tunnels and the exact locations of all its weapons. One notable defector was Mohammad Dajni, the son of Hamas commander Anwar Dajni, who was in charge of “affairs of the wounded” in Gaza. In January 2018, he executed a fellow Palestinian for smuggling arms to the Izz al-Din Qassam Brigade, the military branch of Hamas.[14] Earlier, a top Hamas commander in Syria, Sheikh Abu Saleh Tuha was beheaded by ISIS in the Yarmouk Camp near Damascus, after the terror group overran its premises during the complex battles of the Syria conflict.[15]
There is no doubt that Salafist and jihadist trends exist in Gaza, nor is there any doubt about the general disgust with Hamas. It is unclear if ISIS is as much of a threat as Hamas claims, but if it is then experts believe it is likely ISIS will ultimately overthrow the Hamas government.
The mere existence of groups like OHB strikes a raw nerve in Hamas circles, simply because they appeal to the very same constituency that Hamas claims to represent, being the Sunni Muslims of Palestine and the greater Arab World. Both strive at creating an Islamic state and destroying Israel. The only difference is that while Hamas has been tested in government—and proven to be a repeated failure—other Salafi groups remain rather attractive, promising to right all of Hamas’ wrongs and bring a better life for the Palestinians. For lack of better alternatives in Gaza, people are reaching out to them.
European Eye on Radicalization aims to publish a diversity of perspectives and as such does not endorse the opinions expressed by contributors. The views expressed in this article represent the author alone.
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REFERENCES
[1] Adnan Abu Amer, “Gaza explosions leave Hamas exposed”, Al-Monitor, September 3 2019. https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/ar/contents/articles/originals/2019/08/palestine-gaza-strip-explosions-terrorism-isis-fear-security.html
[2] “Exclusive: An Informed Source Reveals that the Son of an Islamic Jihad Leader is Behind the Gaza Bombings”, I24 News (Arabic), 28 August 2019.
[3] “A Sustainable Recovery In Gaza Is Not Foreseen Without Trade”, The World Bank, March 15, 2018. https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2018/03/15/a-sustainable-recovery-in-gaza-is-not-foreseen-without-trade
[4] “Israel-Palestinian conflict: Life in the Gaza Strip”, BBC, May 15, 2018. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-20415675
[5] “Living conditions in Gaza ‘more and more wretched’ over past decade, UN finds”, UN News, July 11, 2017. https://news.un.org/en/story/2017/07/561302-living-conditions-gaza-more-and-more-wretched-over-past-decade-un-finds
[6] “What happened between Hamas and Daesh?”, Irfaa Sawtak, August 30, 2019. https://www.irfaasawtak.com/a/510404.html
[7] Sami Moubayed, “The seal of the ‘Caliph’ in Gaza City”, Gulf News, September 2015. https://gulfnews.com/opinion/op-eds/the-seal-of-the-caliph-in-gaza-city-1.1585799
[8] Sami Moubayed, “The seal of the ‘Caliph’ in Gaza City”, Gulf News, September 2015. https://gulfnews.com/opinion/op-eds/the-seal-of-the-caliph-in-gaza-city-1.1585799
[9] Dave Bender. “Islamic State Boasts of French Cultural Center Blast”, Gaza Operations, The Algemeiner, December 14, 2014. https://www.algemeiner.com/2014/12/18/islamic-state-boasts-of-french-cultural-center-blast-gaza-operations-video/
[10] Gili Cohen, Shirly Seidler, Jack Khoury, “IDF Strikes Gaza After at Least Two Rockets Fired Toward Southern Israel”, Haaretz, June 4, 2015. https://www.haaretz.com/idf-strikes-gaza-in-response-to-rocket-fire-1.5369289
[11] Israeli National News (31 May 2015): http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/196079#.VW31IflVhBe
[12] Yaakov Levi, “ISIS Threatens to Destroy ‘Heretical Hamas’”, Israel Today, June 9, 2015. https://www.israeltoday.co.il/read/worse-than-hamas-isis-in-gaza/
[13] Zack Beauchamp, “ISIS is threatening Hamas in Gaza. That’s scary news.”, VOX, July 2, 2015. https://www.vox.com/2015/7/2/8886317/isis-hamas-gaza
[14] Ashraf Abdul Hamid. “ISIS Sinai executes a defector and threatens Hamas”, Al Arabiya, January 4, 2018. https://www.alarabiya.net/ar/arab-and-world/egypt/2018/01/04/%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%B9%D8%B4-%D8%B3%D9%8A%D9%86%D8%A7%D8%A1-%D9%8A%D8%B9%D8%AF%D9%85-%D9%85%D9%86%D8%B4%D9%82%D8%A7%D9%8B-%D8%B9%D9%86%D9%87-%D9%88%D9%8A%D8%AA%D9%88%D8%B9%D8%AF-%D8%AD%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%B3
[15] Ari Soffer. “Report: ISIS Beheads Senior Hamas Member in Syria”. Israeli National News, April 5, 2015. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/193666#.VW7iX_lVhBd
