Is Hamas Expanding Outside Of Gaza? Egypt: Hamas Fired The Missiles From Egypt Into Israel And Jordan

Though Egypt admits now that the missiles that hit Eilat and killed a Jordanian came out of their country, they believe that it was Hamas that was behind it:

The deadly rocket attacks on Israel and Jordan's Red Sea ports were carried out by the militant Palestinian Hamas group operating from Egypt, an Egyptian official said Wednesday after days of denials.


Immediately after a barrage of rockets crashed into the sea near Israel's Eilat resort town and killed a taxi driver in Jordan's Aqaba port, Egyptian officials had strongly denied the attack had come from Egypt.

The security official said Hamas had fired seven rockets, including one which misfired and left debris near a security facility in the town of Taba.

The attackers fired Soviet-style Grad rockets of the type used by militants in Lebanon and Gaza, he added, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Hamas denied the Egyptian accusations and said it had no plans to start operating outside of the occupied territories.

"We don't accept this accusation," said Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri. The incident, Abu Zuhri said, "was fabricated by the Zionist occupation in order to create an atmosphere of chaos in the region."

"Hamas' battle was and remains against the Israeli occupation of the land of Palestine," he said.

Of course, Hamas is just being modest--they are doing plenty on their own to bring chaos into the region, and have never seen fit to blame Israel for the rockets being fired out of Gaza at civilians in Israel.

As far as denying acting outside of Gaza, Hamas of course is of curse being somewhat less than truthful on that score. The DEA has been reporting as early as 2002 about Hamas involvement in illegal trafficking.

Meanwhile, Egypt is not impressed by the Hamas denial:

Egypt's official media indicated that Egypt will retaliate to Hamas' attacks in "a powerful and a fierce" way. The state-run Al-Gomhouriar, which is close to the ruling party an a front page editorial headlined read: "Hamas and its ingratitude."

"Hamas insists on harming Egypt's interests," the editoral read. "It seems that from now on, Egypt will be its enemy and Hamas will do everything it can to destabilize security in our lands."

I wonder if Egypt would be willing to take over Gaza--all they would have to do is get rid of Hamas:

• The world would not react to someone other than Israel getting rid of them.
• At this point, Gazans themselves are not too crazy about Hamas anyway.
• The stability of the region would be increased as a puppet of Iran is eliminated.
• The US would finally get its money's worth out of the $2billion a year it gives to Egypt
• Think of all the great restaurants, hotels, and resorts Egypt would get!

Just thinking out loud...

Technorati Tag: Egypt and Hamas.