TEL AVIV — Hamas public security forces have arrested a terrorist cell involved in recent rocket fire at Israel from the Gaza Strip in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s speech in which he recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
A senior security source in the Gaza Strip told Breitbart Jerusalem that five people have been arrested, all members of Liwaa al-Tawhid, an Islamist group whose members broke away from the Salah al-Deen Brigades, the military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees.
Liwaa al-Tawhid members support Salafist jihadism, which is associated with the Islamic State, and were arrested in the north of the Gaza Strip.
The security source said that the five were taken for questioning to root out other cells.
“The Palestinian organizations concluded that the response to Trump’s speech will be protests inside the Strip and confrontations along the border, but not rocket fire,” said the source. “The agreement was to leave the protest in its popular character.”
Four other Liwaa al-Tawhid members were also arrested as a result of investigations into the first five.
The source also said that just one of the rockets fired by the cell managed to make it across the border and land in an open area in Israel while at least three fell short, landing inside the Gaza Strip.
According to the source, the investigation also marked the first time that Hamas security forces had updated their colleagues in the Palestinian Authority Interior Ministry in Ramallah, informing them of the identities of those arrested and the investigative steps taken against them.
The source said this information was shared “with Hamas’ intention to send a message that even if the activities of the group’s security forces continue, they do not mean to defy or ignore the PA government, but to maintain security until all the last obstacles are removed to Palestinian reconciliation, in which Palestinian Authority security forces are supposed to take responsibility for security in the Gaza Strip and the events taking place there.”