BICOM

Hamas closed the Erez border crossing on Saturday for the first time, after one of its senior commanders was killed on Friday.

The lockdown is an attempt to prevent any suspects in the assassination of Mazen Fuqaha, a leader of the military wing’s Izzadin Kassam Brigades, from leaving Gaza. Fishermen have been confined to shore and Hamas has deployed large numbers of fighters to seal the Israeli and Egyptian borders.

Hamas officially blamed Israel, and its collaborators, for killing Fuqaha. Hamas sources said they would not retaliate against Israel with rocket fire, but could take other actions, including in the West Bank and Israel.

IDF units close to the Gaza border were put on high alert and communities in Southern Israel were taking measures in anticipation of rocket fire from Gaza.

Former director of Military Intelligence, Maj. Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin warned: “Hamas could decide that Fuqaha was assassinated by Israel and retaliate, and then we will retaliate to the retaliation and we could be in another clash very quickly.”

Al-Hayat reported that Fuqaha’s killers reached his house from the sea and escaped by boat. He was shot at close range in his garage with a pistol fitted with a silencer. Although there are rumours that Salafi Jihadist groups could have carried out the attack or it was an inside job, Fuqaha’s family said Israeli intelligence officers repeatedly asked them to deliver warnings to him to stop his activities.

In June 2002, Fuqaha planned a suicide bus bombing near Gilo that killed 19 Israelis and in August 2002 he planned a suicide bus bombing in Safed that killed nine Israelis. He was captured and sentenced in 2003 to nine life sentences but released in the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange in 2011.

After his release, Fuqaha was expelled to Gaza and became a leader in Hamas’s West Bank command in charge of planning terrorist operations against Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Last week the head of the Shin Bet told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence committee that Hamas had increased its efforts to commit terrorist acts in the West Bank and Israel.