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Gaza Sources: Hamas not likely to retaliate for Jericho raid

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“Senior officials of the political bureau recently emphasized that they have no interest in a military confrontation with Israel in the Gaza Strip,” a source told TPS.

By Baruch Yedid, TPS

Hamas will not retaliate for Israel’s Monday morning counter-terror raid against its terror cell in Jericho, a source in Gaza told the Tazpit Press Service.

Israeli security forces entered the Aqbat Jabr Refugee Camp near Jericho to arrest members of a Hamas terror cell responsible for a shooting attack on a roadside restaurant in the Jordan Valley last week.

“It is widely believed that Hamas will not respond by shooting at Israel from within the Gaza Strip, following the killing of the seven terrorists in the Aqabat Jaber refugee camp near Jericho, this morning,” the source told TPS.

“Hamas will not be able to respond following the elimination of its people after it did not authorize the Palestinian Islamic Jihad to operate from the Gaza Strip after the elimination of the nine terrorists belonging to PIJ in the refugee camp in Jenin last week,” the source said.

The source stressed that, “If Hamas allows its people to shoot at Israel from within the Gaza Strip, this will also be giving permission to the PIJ and the other resistance elements to operate from within the Strip in a manner that is contrary to Hamas’s policy.”

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This was confirmed by an Arab official who maintains contact with the Hamas leadership abroad.

The official told TPS, “In recent days, senior officials of the [Hamas] political bureau recently emphasized that they have no interest in a military confrontation with Israel in the Gaza Strip.”

He added that “such messages were also conveyed to the Palestinian Authority.”

Hamas did not join Palestinian Islamic Jihad in firing rockets at Israel during a three-day war in August 2022 and has restrained PIJ. Residents of Gaza are not eager for another escalation of conflict and Hamas is still rearming.

Sources say that for now, Hamas’s Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar prefers to pressure Israel from Judea and Samaria, and within Jerusalem.