JAFFA, Israel – Salafists allied with ISIS ideology were caught in the act of planning a mass escape from a Hamas prison in the Gaza Strip last week, according to Hamas sources speaking to Breitbart Jerusalem.
The event spotlights the continued rise of support for ISIS in the Hamas-controlled territory.
The escape attempt was planned by a former leader of Hamas’ so-called military wing who joined the ISIS-aligned Salafists in recent years. He was imprisoned by Hamas last May during deadly clashes between the two jihadist groups when ISIS challenged Hamas’s rule in Gaza.
The Hamas sources said the management of the prison discovered the escape plot and decided to let the Salafists continue with their plans until a short time before the ISIS ideologues were set to carry out the operation.
On Friday, Breitbart Jerusalem obtained and published exclusive images of what jihadists said was an ISIS training camp in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
One of the most significant elements of the camp is the Gaza-centric imagery. One image contains a sign bearing the name Sheikh Imam Abu Noor al-Maqdisi, also known as Sheikh Abdul Latif Musa. Maqdisi was the leader of a Salafist group in Gaza who proclaimed the formation of the “Islamic Emirate of Gaza” on August 14, 2009. One day later he was killed by Hamas forces.
According to the Gazan jihadist who provided the photos, scores of Gazan militants received training in the ISIS base camp, which he says was run by the Sinai-based ISIS-affiliate Al-Wilayat group.