Hamas Warns Israel Amid Gaza Border Tensions: Don’t Test Our Patience

Hamas fighters are seen with homemade rockets on the outskirts of Gaza City.

Gaza City, 26 Rajab 1437/05 May 2016 (MINA) – Following a number of cross-border shooting attacks from the Gaza Strip and reprisals from the IDF on Wednesday, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad warned Israel that there would be consequences for the “escalation.”

Mushir al-Masri, a senior Hamas leader, said: “The Israeli escalation is a new development and the Palestinian resistance is conducting consultations to decide how to react to it.”

In addition, he called on the parties supervising the truce between Israel and Hamas to bear responsibility for “the violations of the Zionist enemy”, emphasizing that “the enemy should not try Hamas’s patience.”

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Islamic Jihad’s Spokesman, Daud Shihab, stated that “Israel has not ceased its hostilities against the Palestinian people since the ceasefire was agreed on in 2014.”

“There are continued onslaughts and infiltrations in both Gaza and the West Bank and in other locations in Palestine,” Shihab added.

The comments came after the IDF shelled Hamas positions in response to four mortar attacks directed against soldiers near the border fence, jpost.com was quoted byMi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

According to social media posts from Gaza, some schools and Hamas security positions near the border were evacuated in light of the tensions.

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The shooting incidents began hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu paid a surprise visit to the Gaza border on Tuesday, declaring that the last two years since the conclusion of Operation Protective Edge have been the calmest years since Hamas took over the coastal enclave in 2007 (T/R07/R01)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)