19-Jun-14: Hamas terrorists killed today in self-inflicted Gaza tunnel explosion

Inside a Hamas tunnel running between Gaza
and Israel [Image Source]

As the tensions generated by the kidnapping of three Israeli schoolboys in an operation widely presumed on all sides of the divide to be executed by Hamas, there has been an explosion today in a tunnel near Gaza’s border with Israel.

The Times of Israel reports ["Five Hamas members killed in Gaza tunnel blast"], quoting Palestinian Arab sources, that five Hamas terrorists at least, perhaps more, are dead. Others are injured. In the words (translated from Arabic) of a Hamas office, “Five martyrs were killed in a resistance activity in Saghira neighborhood” in eastern Gaza City. It gave no further details. As of now, the IDF has not commented.

Over at the "independent" Palestinian news agency Ma'an, they say

Five members of Hamas' al-Qassam Brigades died in an explosion inside a tunnel in the al-Tuffah neighborhood near a Hamas military site in eastern Gaza City on Thursday. The dead were identified as Raid Marshoud, Ibrahim al-Arqan, Khalil al-Ghurabli, Ahmad Ayyad and Salim al-Harrazin. Witnesses told Ma'an that an explosion shook a house in the al-Tuffah neighborhood, and ambulances and civil defense services rushed to the scene. 

An AFP report says the the "accidental explosion" happened inside an al-Qassam tunnel near the border with Israel, which then collapsed on top of 12 terrorists. It goes on to say that Hamas, which has ruled the Gaza Strip since June 2007,

formally relinquished power over it on June 2, when Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas appointed a government of independents under a unity agreement. But Hamas security forces remain in place in Gaza, and the Brigades were not disarmed, as the deal does not relate to the military factions of Palestinian movements [source]

The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades is the name Hamas applies to its so-called military wing. That's rather like saying US Army is the name given by the United States to its military wing; in reality its activities are those of the US government in every sense of the word, and the same naturally is true of al-Qassam and Hamas. The distinction between the two parts of the ruling Hamas organization are artificial and contrived.

Hamas is currently declared a terrorist organisation by the European Union, the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom, among others. The Al-Qassam Wikipedia page (in English) gives prominence to a pre-death portrait of one of the showcased embodiments of its values, the man who, as a human bomb, destroyed the Sbarro pizza shop in central Jerusalem in 2001, murdering our daughter and 14 others.