SIS may have seized weapons from interdicted shipment to Hamas

Weapons that survived an Egyptian strike on an arms convoy heading to Gaza may have reached the Islamic State's Sinai affiliate and used in a massive operation against Egyptian forces.

Hamas believes a shipment of arms to Gaza that was interdicted by Egypt could have fallen into the hands of the Islamic State, Ynet has learned.

A recent major-scale Egyptian operation to thwart the smuggling of weapons into the Gaza Strip may have had an unintended consequence.

A few days after the operation against a convoy of Gaza-bound arms, fighters in Sinai from Ansar Beit al Maqdis, a group that pledged allegiance to the Islamic State nearly a year ago, mounted a large scale attack against Egyptian security forces in the peninsula using weapons similar to those seen in the shipment.

ISIS in Sinai fires at Israeli communities during protective edge

The Hamas leadership believes that ISIS seized the weapons that remained intact after the Egyptian strike on the weapons convoy, having told Hamas that the weapons were destroyed.

The Sinai branch of the radical terror organization has seemingly become independent of Hamas, despite basic logistical ties that were formed between the organizations.

These ties included the transfer of ISIS fighters wounded in the fighting with Egyptian forces to Gaza's Shifa hospital for medical treatment and the transfer of hundreds of thousands of dollars from Hamas to ISIS in Sinai in exchange for the smuggling of raw materials used in the strip's domestic weapons manufacturing.

In order to facilitate the flow of weapons shipments, the ISIS affiliate, which took over the Sinai side of the Gaza smuggling tunnels, demands a "tax" in the form of a small number of the weapons.

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