ISIS linked group claim Mortar Attack On Gaza

DarkyHughes

As if the people of Gaza didn't have enough on their plates their now being attacked by the most notorious terrorist group on earth.

http://rt.com/news/256941-isis-attack-gaza-hamas/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

"A jihadist group with ties to the Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a mortar attack on a Hamas base in the Gaza Strip.
The group, calling itself 'Supporters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL),' said in an online statement that it fired mortar rounds at a base used by the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades (Hamas' armed wing) in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza, on Friday.
Witnesses told AFP they heard explosions close to Khan Yunis.
It follows an attack earlier this week, which targeted Hamas’ security headquarters in Gaza. That assault took place after radical Islamists issued a threatening message, calling for the release of prisoners."

Why would ISIS be attacking Hamas & the people of Gaza?

A Primal Nut

Their stances are based on power rather than principle. They want to expand their state into Gaza and Hamas stand in their way. The fact they share certain ideologies doesn't seem to matter.

Terrible for all the innocents stuck in the crossfire.

Nodin

DarkyHughes wrote: »

.................


Why would ISIS be attacking Hamas & the people of Gaza?

They consider them apostate. There's only one Islam according to IS and that's their version.

johnnyskeleton

DarkyHughes wrote: »

As if the people of Gaza didn't have enough on their plates their now being attacked by the most notorious terrorist group on earth.

http://rt.com/news/256941-isis-attack-gaza-hamas/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Why would ISIS be attacking Hamas & the people of Gaza?

ISIS have also attacked the Yarmouk Palestinian Refugee camp in Syria. Palestinian people are generally religiously and political moderate and just want to get on with their lives. ISIS is probably the most extreme regieme in the world at the moment. Any organisation that Al Quaeda says "those guys arent with us" is not likely to have clear rules as to who is a friend and who is an enemy

BlaasForRafa

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

ISIS have also attacked the Yarmouk Palestinian Refugee camp in Syria. Palestinian people are generally religiously and political moderate and just want to get on with their lives. ISIS is probably the most extreme regieme in the world at the moment. Any organisation that Al Quaeda says "those guys arent with us" is not likely to have clear rules as to who is a friend and who is an enemy

Daesh is also at war with Hezbollah who are aligned with Iran, which Hamas is also aligned with and funded by. I wonder if it's ex-Fatah or Islamic Jihad that have thrown in their lot with Daesh.

rockatansky

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

Daesh is also at war with Hezbollah who are aligned with Iran, which Hamas is also aligned with and funded by. I wonder if it's ex-Fatah or Islamic Jihad that have thrown in their lot with Daesh.

I didn't think the alignment between Hamas and Hezbollah was that strong. Besides the obvious one is Shia and one is Sunni, wasn't there trouble last year between the two over both supporting different sides in the Syrian Civil War?

I get the impression that there would be many from within all Palestinian groups that would gladly cross over and fall under the IS banner.

Nodin

rockatansky wrote: »

I didn't think the alignment between Hamas and Hezbollah was that strong. Besides the obvious one is Shia and one is Sunni, wasn't there trouble last year between the two over both supporting different sides in the Syrian Civil War?

I get the impression that there would be many from within all Palestinian groups that would gladly cross over and fall under the IS banner.

You'd be wrong there. They're hostile to IS generally.

DarkyHughes

A Primal Nut wrote: »

Their stances are based on power rather than principle. They want to expand their state into Gaza and Hamas stand in their way. The fact they share certain ideologies doesn't seem to matter.

Terrible for all the innocents stuck in the crossfire.

But how would ISIS get into a position to target Gaza with mortars. I taught the ways in & out of the place & air space were heavily controlled by Israel. And if they were in a position to target Gaza surely they must be in position to target Israel.

jank

DarkyHughes wrote: »

But how would ISIS get into a position to target Gaza with mortars. I taught the ways in & out of the place & air space were heavily controlled by Israel. And if they were in a position to target Gaza surely they must be in position to target Israel.

Good question. I suppose when it comes to smuggling weapons and explosives into Gaza it is not the Fort Knox some would like to believe. At the moment ISIS are in 'recruitment' phase. For them Israel and the Jews can wait, right now they want to garner support from disaffected Muslims, mostly young males. I suppose their goal is to control Gaza and large swathes of Syria/Lebannon. They also know that going after Israel now would be a waste of time as they would prove easy cannon fodder for the IDF.

BoJack Horseman

DarkyHughes wrote: »

But how would ISIS get into a position to target Gaza with mortars.

ISIS didn't.
Just a small group wanting to associate themselves with the big-daddy did.
And from time to time, Hamas clash with other islamist groups.

I taught the ways in & out of the place & air space were heavily controlled by Israel.

The Egyptian border is a sieve & airspace is irrelevant for an infantry weapon like this.
A mortar is only about 3ft - 4ft long & weighs just 20-30kg.

Depending on the one used, they can be just carried in a bag..... you can't monitor that.

And if they were in a position to target Gaza surely they must be in position to target Israel.

Unlikely, mortars don't have the range.

TommyKnocker

DarkyHughes wrote: »

As if the people of Gaza didn't have enough on their plates their now being attacked by the most notorious terrorist group on earth.

"A jihadist group with ties to the Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a mortar attack on a Hamas base in the Gaza Strip."

Why would ISIS be attacking Hamas & the people of Gaza?

Any chance that "Jihadist Group" is called Mossad?

Gaza is surrounded on all sides by Israel or US/Israel supported Egypt. So it is hard to see how any attacks would be launched on Gaza, unless a blind eye was turned to such attack.

donaghs

TommyKnocker wrote: »

Any chance that "Jihadist Group" is called Mossad?

Gaza is surrounded on all sides by Israel or US/Israel supported Egypt. So it is hard to see how any attacks would be launched on Gaza, unless a blind eye was turned to such attack.

Articles say the attack came from Sinai, Egypt. There appears to be a large Islamist presence there, and its already been reported that some of them have aligned themselves with IS last year.

Also, since they are capable of attacking and killing Egyptian soldiers on more than one occasion, its possible they could mortar Gaza too.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/03/world/middleeast/egypt-militants-attack-sinai-checkpoints.html?_r=0

DarkyHughes

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

ISIS didn't.
Just a small group wanting to associate themselves with the big-daddy did.
And from time to time, Hamas clash with other islamist groups.


The Egyptian border is a sieve & airspace is irrelevant for an infantry weapon like this.
A mortar is only about 3ft - 4ft long & weighs just 20-30kg.

Depending on the one used, they can be just carried in a bag..... you can't monitor that.


Unlikely, mortars don't have the range.

Exactly, so they must have got themselves into a great logistical position to target it effectively.

powerfade

TommyKnocker wrote: »

Any chance that "Jihadist Group" is called Mossad?

Gaza is surrounded on all sides by Israel or US/Israel supported Egypt. So it is hard to see how any attacks would be launched on Gaza, unless a blind eye was turned to such attack.

Talk about putting two and two together and getting 56.. Israel would much prefer to have Hamas in their neighbourhood rather than IS. IS is a much more dangerous prospect to Israel than Hamas every has or will be. IS could bring a tank through the Egyptian border into Palestine. That is how Hamas bring in all of their weapons.

Nodin

donaghs wrote: »

Articles say the attack came from Sinai, Egypt. There appears to be a large Islamist presence there, and its already been reported that some of them have aligned themselves with IS last year.

Also, since they are capable of attacking and killing Egyptian soldiers on more than one occasion, its possible they could mortar Gaza too.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/03/world/middleeast/egypt-militants-attack-sinai-checkpoints.html?_r=0

By the accords of some peace treaty or other Egyptian military presence in the Sinai is severly limited, hence its a bit on the 'wild' side.

DarkyHughes

powerfade wrote: »

Talk about putting two and two together and getting 56.. Israel would much prefer to have Hamas in their neighbourhood rather than IS. IS is a much more dangerous prospect to Israel than Hamas every has or will be. IS could bring a tank through the Egyptian border into Palestine. That is how Hamas bring in all of their weapons.

Wasn't Israel one of the countries helping supply ISIS when they were fighting the Assad regime in Syria when they were considered courageous rebels fighting for freedom & democracy?

BlaasForRafa

DarkyHughes wrote: »

Wasn't Israel one of the countries helping supply ISIS when they were fighting the Assad regime in Syria when they were considered courageous rebels fighting for freedom & democracy?

No.

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

Unlikely, mortars don't have the range.

Normal infantry mortars have a range of 4-6km, that's more than enough range to get from Gaza to populated areas of Israel. A number of Israeli military and civilians have been killed by mortar strikes in the last 15 years.

TommyKnocker

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

No.
Normal infantry mortars have a range of 4-6km, that's more than enough range to get from Gaza to populated areas of Israel. A number of Israeli military and civilians have been killed by mortar strikes in the last 15 years.

Since 2001 44 Israelis have died as a result of rockets and mortars fired from Gaza into Israel. See http://mondoweiss.net/2014/07/rocket-deaths-israel

In just the last 3 Israeli attacks on Gaza the death toll is 3,858, giving a ratio not far off 100:1. This is not taking into account deaths in the occupied West bank or deaths in Gaza at the hands of Israeli army, police and settlers. People dying at checkpoints being denied access medical treatment etc.

2008-2009 (22 days) Operation Cast Led. 1,391 Palestinians died of which 759 were classed a civilians.

2012 (8 days) Operation Pillar of Defense. 167 Palestinians died of which 87 were classed a civilian.

2014 (51 days) Operation Protective Edge. Around 2,300 Palestinians have died to date, of which over 70% were classed as civilian. Some 540 were children and even today Palestinians are still dying as a result of unexploded ordinance littering Gaza from this last attack.

See http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28439404

Sand

TommyKnocker wrote: »

Since 2001 44 Israelis have died as a result of rockets and mortars fired from Gaza into Israel. See http://mondoweiss.net/2014/07/rocket-deaths-israel

In just the last 3 Israeli attacks on Gaza the death toll is 3,858, giving a ratio not far off 100:1. This is not taking into account deaths in the occupied West bank or deaths in Gaza at the hands of Israeli army, police and settlers. People dying at checkpoints being denied access medical treatment etc.

2008-2009 (22 days) Operation Cast Led. 1,391 Palestinians died of which 759 were classed a civilians.

2012 (8 days) Operation Pillar of Defense. 167 Palestinians died of which 87 were classed a civilian.

2014 (51 days) Operation Protective Edge. Around 2,300 Palestinians have died to date, of which over 70% were classed as civilian. Some 540 were children and even today Palestinians are still dying as a result of unexploded ordinance littering Gaza from this last attack.

See http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28439404

Israelis focus on protecting their people more than Hamas does. Hamas regularly invites the Israeli military to have a fight in urban, civilian Palestinian areas. The figures reflect that.

TommyKnocker

Sand wrote: »

Israelis focus on protecting their people more than Hamas does. Hamas regularly invites the Israeli military to have a fight in urban, civilian Palestinian areas. The figures reflect that.

Hamas does not "invite" Israeli military to any fights in urban, civilian areas. The Israeli military don't require any invitations to attack Gaza and are quite adept at conjuring up reasons to attack Gaza and kill unarmed, non combatant civilians indiscriminately. The recent, widely reported reports from Israeli soldiers and officers who fought in Gaza last year tells you how the ITF fought in Gaza.

Gaza is 360Km squared and is home to 1.816 million people (2014 figures). Compare that to our own country (Ireland) with its 4.5 million people in 84,500 Km squared.



It is known to be one of the most densely populated places on the planet. It would be very hard to have a fight in a non urban area.

The days of opposing armies lining up each end of a field and charging at each other are long gone. How Hamas fight today is no different to how the Jewish resistance fought in the Warsaw ghetto uprising or how the other resistance movements fought against the Nazis in WW II. Today most of the world toasts these resistance fighters as heroes.

The fact is Palestine is under Israeli occupation and an occupied people have the right to resist their occupiers by any and all means available to them, including an armed struggle. No occupier in history has ever given the people they occupied their freedom back out of the goodness of their hearts. In all cases the occupied won their freedom through armed struggle and resistance and garnering support for their cause from the wider world.

BlaasForRafa

This thread is about Daesh and it's capabilities, not an excuse to have a rant about Israel, there are plenty of those threads already.

Sand

DarkyHughes wrote: »

Why would ISIS be attacking Hamas & the people of Gaza?

They're not. "Fellow travellers" are attacking Hamas. There's nothing new in the various shades of extremist Islam murdering each other over not being Islamic enough.

hatrickpatrick

As others have said, it's a mistake to imagine that Isis is supportive of Muslim populations or even Islamic extremist terrorists like Hamas. As far as they're concerned, their own brand of fundamentalism is the only legitimate brand, and every non IS Muslim is either someone waiting to be converted, or an infidel.

It's a bit like how the Westboro Baptist Church present themselves as true Christians, but then wage campaigns against all other mainstream branches of Christianity ("God Hates Catholics", "God Hates Methodists", etc) - they not only believe that Christianity is the only legitimate religion, but that every other Christian group apart from themselves has screwed it up and is therefore also the enemy.

This is why IS is widely regarded as being more insane and more dangerous than even Al Qaeda. Despite the utter evil of other fundamentalist groups, most of them have some kind of limit. I've actually heard that Bin Laden's crowd distanced themselves from the fledging IS a few years ago because they viewed them as too crazy to get involved with.

johnnyskeleton

Mod: While a souçon of Israel could be added to this particular dish, lets keep it on topic lads. Long boring posts about how reasonable Israel is/is not can go into one of our many long boring threads about how reasonable Israel is/isnt.