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Is Hamas exploiting Libya chaos to smuggle arms into Gaza?

The Times reported that a Hamas envoy to Libya has set up an arms-smuggling group to funnel weapons to the Gaza Strip, which was categorically denied by Hamas.
People watch as rockets are fired during a military drill by Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas and other Palestinian armed factions in Gaza City on December 29, 2020. (Photo by MAHMUD HAMS / AFP) (Photo by MAHMUD HAMS/AFP via Getty Images)

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — “The Palestinian militant group Hamas used the chaos of Libya’s civil war to set up an arms-smuggling group that tried to funnel anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles to Gaza,” The Times reported Feb. 8. 

Citing documents it has received, the British daily continued that the group “was given the job of diverting arms intended for Libyan battlefields through Egypt and used middlemen and Hamas militants in Turkey and Qatar to circumvent an Israeli blockade on Gaza.” 

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