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Israel, Hamas, Egypt indirectly cooperating against IS

While Egypt and Hamas coordinate efforts against the Islamic State in the Sinai Peninsula, Israel is providing intelligence to Egypt to boost these efforts.
A picture taken from the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah shows a member of the Egyptian forces standing guard near the border between Gaza and Egypt on August 17, 2017.

A suicide bomber killed a Hamas guard in southern Gaza, officials said, in what was seen as a rare Islamist attack against the Palestinian group that has run the impoverished enclave for a decade. / AFP PHOTO / SAID KHATIB        (Photo credit should read SAID KHATIB/AFP/Getty Images)
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How times have changed. Al-Monitor has learned that in the fight against the Islamic State (IS) in Sinai and Salafi groups in Gaza, there has been indirect cooperation as of late between Egypt, Hamas and Israel. Who would have thought?

A Palestinian from Rafah, Mustafa Kalab, conducted a suicide attack against Hamas operatives Aug. 17, killing an officer in the elite Nuhbah unit of Hamas' military wing and wounding five others. Thus, a group that embraced suicide attacks at the start of the 1990s has discovered to its surprise that the “weapon” that elevated it in the eyes of Palestinians in opposing the 1993 Oslo Accord, and even more so, during the height of the second intifada (2000-2005), has now been turned against it.

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