May 31, 2015
Hamas has long had a complicated
relationship with Salafi-jihadi groups operating in Gaza. But in the past few
weeks, a series of clashes between Hamas and self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS)
affiliates in the strip, such as Ansar Al-Dawla Al-Islamiyya, have underscored
that the complex balance between active armed factions may be growing more
precarious and unstable by the day.
Salafi movements are hardly a new
phenomenon in Gaza, with non-violent social and political groups—including Hizb
Al-Tahrir—operating in Gaza since at least the 1980s. Yet in the past decade,
the strip has seen the rise of a small number of loosely organized
self-proclaimed Salafi-jihadi organizations. These groups first emerged in the
period leading up to the 2005 Israeli withdrawal, but grew in influence in the
midst of the Fatah-Hamas clashes and the subsequent Hamas takeover of Gaza in
2007. These local jihadi cells maintained ideological (but not operational)
links to al-Qaeda and have been active in Gaza since 2007, opposing the Hamas
government and its perceived moderation while perpetrating mostly low-scale
attacks against internal targets, along with launching rockets at Israel.
Hamas has taken different approaches to
Salafi-jihadi groups over time, from turning a blind eye to local Salafi-jihadi
activism to actively cracking down on them. To date, the harshest confrontation
took place in the summer of 2009, when Abd Al-Latif Musa, leader of Jund Ansar
Allah and the imam of the Ibn Taymiyya Mosque in Rafah, defied the Hamas
government and announced the creation of the “Islamic Emirate” of Rafah. This
led to a violent
confrontation between his Salafi supporters and the Hamas government,
ending in the death of the group’s leaders and the demise of the organization.
Since then, the relationship between
Hamas and Salafi groups has not substantially improved in the years, even
though—following the ousting
of the Morsi government in the summer of 2013—Hamas reportedly sought to freeze
the conflict with the Salafi-jihadi camp by both trying to reach a détente
and partially adopting a more lenient posture. The rising economic and
political pressure stemming from its rocky relationship with Egypt likely
played a role in pushing the group to boost unity within the strip.
Yet since the summer
2014 war with Israel, internal tensions have again been on the rise.
Salafi-jihadis’ movements have been more prominently on the map since the rise
of the Islamic State project. The Islamic State’s rise, along with its very
public divorce from al-Qaeda, led a number of Gaza-based jihadi groups to switch
their loyalty from Ayman al-Zawahiri to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Even though
these groups don’t necessarily have strong operational links with IS in Iraq
and Syria, and despite the fact the “pro-IS” camp remains small and internally
fragmented, Hamas has been closely monitoring the growing public profile of
this “Salafi-jihadi” camp.
Hoping to nip this trend in the bud,
Hamas’s attitude against these groups in the past few months has become harsher,
and the group arrested a cleric
allegedly affiliated with the Islamic State at the beginning of April. This was
followed by a more aggressive
round of arrests and the increased attention of Hamas authorities in Gaza
toward self-proclaimed IS sympathizers in the strip. Unsurprisingly, the rounds
of arrests triggered a number of unsophisticated reprisals,
including against the UNRWA
headquarters. Tensions mounted further at the beginning of May, following
both Ansar Al-Dawla Al-Islamiyya’s 72-hour ultimatum
to free all the arrested Salafis and Hamas’s destruction of the small mosque of Al-Moutahabbin amid
its continued campaign of arrests. In response, IS supporters in Gaza launched
attacks against Hamas, including a mortar attack against
a Qassam Brigades base in southern Gaza, and issued more threats against Hamas
and the Qassam Brigades specifically.
For its part, Hamas has strongly downplayed the impact of these
attacks and repeatedly denied the presence of IS-affiliated organizations in
Gaza, claiming they only exist on the Internet. At this point, Hamas is
certainly not threatened militarily by the seeming rise and increasing
animosity of these rather loosely organized and mostly unsophisticated
IS-affiliated groups. At the same time, the rise of the latest manifestation of
the Salafi-jihadi camp is politically worrying for Hamas.
This has created a number of challenges
for Hamas, which is already struggling to address severe economic issues in Gaza. The
much-hoped-for relief that was supposed to arrive following the announcement of
the unity government in spring 2014 has not materialized, and the preexisting
economic crisis has been further exacerbated
by the damage inflicted on Gaza by the summer 2014 war with Israel and the glacial pace of reconstruction.
Hamas has been largely unable to pay for the salaries of its more than 40,000
employees, leading to growing dissatisfaction within Gaza and recurring and
ever more extended
strikes.
Growing dissatisfaction in Gaza could
allow radical groups such as self-proclaimed IS supporters to entice new
recruits. If the past
is any guide, some of these recruits could actually come from within the ranks
of Hamas, as these groups could win over disenfranchised fighters frustrated
with the lack of monetary compensation or armed struggle against Israel.
Hamas—a group deeply focused on preserving internal unity, cohesion, and
morale—would regard any of such defections as incredibly problematic. What is
more, the rise of competing armed groups raises the chance of internal strife
within Gaza. Finally, in an effort to weaken Hamas and undermine its grip over
Gaza, the Salafi-jihadi camp could decide to step up its rocket attacks against
Israel, which in turn could lead to its much-desired escalation.
Islamic State affiliates and supporters
make up a very small portion of Gaza’s population. But the combination of
political paralysis, stalled reconstruction, and ongoing economic issues
present a serious threat to Hamas’s level of support and the long-term
stability of Gaza.
This article is reprinted
with permission from Sada. It can be accessed online at: http://carnegieendowment.org/sada/2015/05/28/hamas-s-islamic-state-woes/i94r
Benedetta
Berti is a research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, a
post-doctoral fellow at Ben Gurion University, a TED 2015 Fellow, and the
author of Armed Political Organizations.