No BBC News reporting on Hamas-ISIS tensions

Increased conflict between Hamas and Wilayat Sinai gets no BBC coverage.

The BBC’s avoidance of any serious, in-depth reporting on the subject of relations between Hamas and the ISIS franchise based in the Sinai Peninsula has been previously documented on these pages:

Poor BBC reporting on Hamas-ISIS Sinai collaboration highlighted again

When winds began to change on that front last year, the BBC likewise failed to produce any English language coverage.

BBC News continues to ignore the story of Hamas-ISIS Sinai relations

BBC News ignores a Hamas related story that contradicts previous reporting

Gaza explosion: BBC News silent, BBC Arabic promotes knee-jerk speculation

Earlier this month tensions between Hamas and Wilayat Sinai increased further.

“The Islamic State branch in the Sinai Peninsula on Wednesday called on its supporters to attack Hamas in a gruesome execution video as long-simmering tensions between the rival Islamic terror groups erupted into the open.

The 22-minute long video culminated with the execution of one of its members, shot in the back of the head for allegedly smuggling weapons to Hamas.

“[Hamas] uses its smuggled weapons to empower that which was not revealed by God. It also fights supporters of the Islamic State in Gaza and the Sinai and prevents the migration of these supporters from Gaza to the Sinai,” said a speaker in the video, who is referred to as Abu Kazem al-Maqdisi, an Islamic State preacher in the Sinai, originally from Gaza.

Maqdisi calls on viewers to attack the security headquarters and courthouses of Hamas in Gaza, as these are “the pillars of tyranny.” […]

In recent months, Hamas has beefed up security along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt seeking to assure Cairo that it is fighting IS sympathizers. The Hamas crackdown on the Egyptian militants was a key part of restoring ties between Hamas and Cairo, which has since played a key role in Palestinian reconciliation agreements.”

Hamas, however, publicised its own ‘explanation’ of the video.

“On Thursday, Hamas spokesperson Salah Bardawil dismissed the Islamic State video as a “Zionist production.”

The video is “a Zionist production in which Arab tools participate to distort the resistance…This is what the Zionist intelligence agency and its lackeys have been striving for,” he wrote in a statement on Twitter.

Bardawil argued Hamas’s conflict with Salafis is not ideological, but rather an issue of security.”

Unlike readers of the New York Times, the Washington Post or the Israeli media, BBC audiences have seen no coverage of this story.

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