Hamas Warns It Will Unleash Suicide Bombers, ‘Burn’ Cities if Israel Targets Its Leaders

The Gaza-ruling Hamas terror group has threatened to go back to carrying out suicide bombings and to “burn down” Israeli cities if Israel targets its senior members.

“We will burn the cities in [the country’s] center and launch missiles at Tel Aviv and Gush Dan if Israel acts on its threats, those of which surpasses the enemy’s imagination,” Hamas warned, according to a translation by The Times of Israel.

“The return of assassinations means the return of the explosive operations inside [Israeli] cities,” Hamas told Egyptian mediators.

It said that targeting its leadership, especially its leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar (pictured), would prompt an “unprecedented response” and a “regional earthquake.”

Last year’s 11 day conflict with Hamas in May, in which more than 4,300 rockets were launched from Gaza into Israeli population centers, “will be but an ordinary event compared to what the enemy will witness,” a Hamas spokesperson warned.

Israel has targeted senior Hamas leaders in the past in retribution for acts of terror.

The report cited a senior Israeli security official as describing Hamas’ threats as “hysterical.”

“Their response in the last few hours only reminds us all of who begged for a ceasefire,” during war in May, he said.

Sinwar, this week threatened that if Israel “violates” the Al Aqsa Mosque, it would launch another war. 

According to the Haaretz daily, the suspects of a terror attack on Independence Day that left three people dead in the city of Elad, were said to have been inspired by an incendiary speech by Sinwar calling on Palestinians and Arab Israelis to carry out terror attacks.

“Let everyone who has a rifle, ready it. And if you don’t have a rifle, ready your cleaver or an axe, or a knife,” Sinwar said.

The two suspects, As’ad Yousef As’ad al-Rifa’i, 19, and Subhi Emad Subhi Abu Shqeir, 20, killed three men and injured seven others with axes and knives.