BICOM

A group responsible for launching flying firebombs out of Gaza has vowed on to continue their operations against Israel.

Bani Zawari, or the Al-Zawari Unit, named after a Hamas-linked engineer and drone expert who was assassinated in Tunisia in 2016, have warned they will continue to send flying firebombs into Israel “even more intensively” until the Gaza blockade is removed. They appear to be affiliated to Hamas but claim not to receive their orders from them.

The group stated: “Israel has spread lies that we would halt our actions within 72 hours and that Hamas has deployed forces to prevent us from operating. Therefore we hereby declare that these are lies and that the various units have gone out in the field this morning to continue with their operations with the aim of proving we don’t take orders from anyone.”

There were reports earlier in the week that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad were in talks with Egyptian intelligence in an effort to reach a ceasefire and achieve an easing of the Gaza blockade from Israel and Egypt.

However, a senior Hamas political official told Haaretz: “We don’t want to return to the situation in which we were before the kites, because it was a bad situation in any case and it prompted us to hold marches [along the border fence], and from that, the matter of the kites developed.”

The official added: “What is being offered to us now is a return to the same circumstances and that won’t change anything. From an operational and public diplomacy standpoint, it’s easier for Israel to deal with rockets rather than balloons, so it will do everything to push Hamas and the other factions into this corner. Those in Hamas don’t want to play into Israel’s hands.”

The official said that Hamas is not seeking a confrontation with Israel but it understands that the continued dispatch of the incendiary kites and balloons into Israel could lead to one.

On Wednesday, another 15 fires raged in fields and woodland on the Israeli side of the Gaza border caused by the flying firebombs. Since March, more than 900 fires were started by the devices, burning close to 10,000 acres of Israeli land.

In a separate development, Hamas and PA delegations have also restarted reconciliation talks, facilitated by Egypt, according to Senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzouk. The group has accepted a proposal put forward by Egypt, which Abu Marzouk said calls for the immediate lifting of sanctions imposed a year ago on the Gaza Strip by the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority (PA).

The proposal also calls for allowing the PA government in the West Bank to reassume responsibility for running in the Gaza Strip and calls for a unified judicial system and “land authority” for the West Bank and Gaza Strip under Egyptian supervision.