As we reported earlier this week, a Daesh-inspired group in Gaza claimed responsibility for an attack on Sunday that killed top Hamas commander, Saber Siam.
Daesh's actual influence in the Strip is contested. Hamas insists the group lacks both the infrastructure and the support to get a footing in Gaza, and Arutz Sheva (who originally reported the assassination) couldn’t independently verify that the group and claiming Siam's killing was related to Daesh — or even existed — at all.
Now, things are escalating further after Siam's death — on Tuesday, Hamas officers shot dead a 27-year-old Gaza resident and local Salafist leader during an arrest attempt in his home.
But interactions between Hamas and radical Salafists inside Gaza did not start on Sunday. For the last several months, Hamas has bolstered checkpoints and carried out dozens of arrests over suspected Daesh-affiliation.
This came to a head last month, at a tiny, makeshift mosque in Gaza called Almtahabin.
Run by Egyptian Daesh-affiliate Ansar al-Bayt al-Maqdis, Hamas believed the mosque had become a hotbed for Daesh recruiting among radical Palestinian Salafists. The Palestinian group demolished it in early May, the International Business Times reported, arresting seven Ansar members in the process.
Tensions also boiled over during Daesh's brief takeover of Syria's Palestinian refugee camp Yarmouk in April. During the attacks there, Daesh beheaded several Palestinians, some of them belonging to Hamas, according to a report by the Independent.
Siam's assasination isn't the first time we've seen Hamas and Daesh come head-to-head, and it might not be the last.
