Will the Islamic State forces in Sinai take part in the next clash between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip?
Officials in the intelligence community who are monitoring the group's growing strength and movements on the Sinai Peninsula tend to think so, and Israel is preparing accordingly. The IDF has even notified communities in the Eshkol Regional Council that it is considering lengthening the anti-tunnel barrier that has been dug along the Gaza border to areas on Israel's border with Egypt to counter Islamic State in Sinai.
The Institute for National Security Studies has been busy studying the jihadi group for years. This week, the institute presented President Reuven Rivlin with its annual security assessment. Among other issues, the report discusses the potential for a major terrorist event in Islamic State-controlled Sinai.
"If there is another war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas and other organizations there, we can assume that the parts of Sinai controlled by the Islamic State will also take part in it,"Lt. Col. (res.) Yoram Schweitzer, who heads the Program on Terrorism and Low Intensity Conflict at the INSS and is an expert in the field, says In an interview with Israel Hayom.
As someone who has spent years studying the globalization of suicide terrorist attacks, and who formerly served as head of the IDF's international counterterrorism department, Schweitzer shares the belief that ISIS in Sinai will not remain idle if another clash erupts in the south. He can point out family ties and mutual interests that Hamas in Gaza and the ISIS leadership in Sinai share.
"Although ISIS sees Hamas as heretics, and there are deep ideological divides between the two groups, the relations between Hamas in Gaza and the Islamic State in Sinai include mutual interests, a history of cooperating on weapons smuggling and some Hamas members who crossed the border and joined ISIS in Sinai.
"The two groups mix. There are some Hamas members who were disappointed with the group and crossed over to operate as part of [ISIS] in Sinai, and there are clans in Gaza and Sinai who have some members who are active in Hamas in Gaza and others who are active within the framework of ISIS in Sinai," Schweitzer says.
The analyst goes on to discuss the "complicated organizational ties between Hamas and ISIS in Sinai, which have had ups and downs."
"Even when the Egyptians are putting heavy pressure on Hamas, the group does not turn over members of ISIS-Sinai who have sought shelter in Gaza," he adds.
According to Schweitzer, this means that "Hamas is still leaving itself room to cooperate with ISIS in Sinai. A supply and weapons smuggling pipeline to Gaza, with assistance from ISIS-Sinai, is turning out to be an interest stronger than the fear of threats from Egypt, which is demanding that Hamas turn in Islamic State operatives who are hiding in Gaza."
Fear of widespread rocket attacks
Islamic State in Sinai has proved its military capabilities and professionalism over the past few years, in particular in recent months. The possibility of ISIS in Sinai taking part in the next round of Gaza fighting demands that we review what the organization has managed to perpetrate against Egyptian and Israeli targets these past few years.
The worst terrorist attack ISIS in Sinai has carried out against an Egyptian target took place at the Sufi al-Rawdah Mosque in northern Sinai at the end of this past November. A total of 311 worshippers were killed, including dozens of children. The unusual target was apparently chosen because the Sawarka Bedouin clan and the mosque's imam were cast as vigorous opponents of the Islamic State and as collaborators with the Egyptian government's war on ISIS.
The al-Rawdah bombing was the worst terrorist attack in the history of modern Egypt, and it came after ISIS terrorists managed to slip a bomb onto a Russian tourist plane in Sharm a-Sheikh in October of 2015. The plane blew up in mid-air, and all passengers and crew – 224 people in all – were killed. Every year for the past three years, more than 400 Egyptian civilians and members of Egypt's security forces meet their deaths in jihadi terrorist attacks, mainly executed by Islamic State. The attacks are not limited to Sinai; they are creeping into Egypt proper. Often, they target the country's Coptic Christians and tourist destinations in Egypt and Sinai, like the shooting attack at St. Catherine's monastery last April.
According to foreign reports, as well as reports from the Islamic State delegation in Sinai, Israel is helping Egypt fight ISIS terrorism, contributing intelligence and airstrikes. This is prompting ISIS in Sinai to attack Israeli targets as well, although the jihadis in Sinai had Israel in their crosshairs long before Israel was involved in any way in Egypt's efforts to eradicate the jihadis from the Sinai Peninsula.
As early as October 2004, three explosives-rigged cars blew up at the main Israeli tourist destinations in Sinai – the Taba Hilton and the Ras al-Shitan beach, killing 34 people, 12 of whom were Israelis. In the summer of 2011, Salafi jihadis managed to infiltrate Israel from Sinai and attack two Egged buses and a number of cars near Eilat, close to the Egyptian border. Six Israeli civilians, an IDF soldier, and a member of the Israel Police special forces were killed in these attacks. A year later, the Sinai terrorists almost managed to perpetrate a disastrous attack when they used an explosives-rigged APC and truck to breach the Israeli border near Kerem Shalom. The truck hit an old British "pillbox" guard post at the border crossing and blew up, while the APC continued moving forward into Israeli territory until an IDF attack helicopter destroyed it with a missile.
Between 2011-2012, the natural gas pipeline running from Al-Arish in Sinai to Israel and Jordan was sabotaged 15 times. The Sinai-based terrorists have also fired rockets, although relatively few, at Israel over the years. Between 2010 and 2015, 22 Grad rockets were fired at Eilat and the communities in the Eshkol region.
Three years ago, ISIS in Sinai claimed responsibility for one of the rocket attacks for the first time, after firing three rockets toward the Eshkol Regional Council. In 2017, another six rockets were fired, four at Eilat and two at the Eshkol region. The concern now is that in the next clash with Hamas, ISIS in Sinai will launch rocket attacks against Israeli communities, this time more numerous.
'ISIS victims'
Another possibility is that the Islamic State might try, or might already be trying, to dig tunnels from Egypt into Eshkol region communities. Given this danger, the defense establishment decided to extend the anti-tunnel defense barrier to the Israel-Egypt border to protect the communities that lie near it. Local council heads in the region were informed of the decision, but it appears that at this stage, the anti-tunnel barrier along the Gaza border is being prioritized.
In the meantime, these communities have to put up with the sounds of the Egyptian army battling the Islamic State jihadis along a 20-kilometer (12.5-mile) stretch of Israel's border with Egypt. Many of the homes bear cracks caused by the reverberation of the war going on only a few miles on the other side of the border. Occasionally, it spills over.
In recent months, dozens of children from Israeli border communities have been receiving treatment after exhibiting signs of anxiety or trauma. Some of the children have experienced the events of operations Protective Edge, Pillar of Defense or Cast Lead. Staff from the Hosen Center, a service established in the Gaza periphery and southern Israel in 2008 to help residents cope with the stress of rocket fire, warning sirens and periodic armed clashes, refers to these kids as "ISIS victims," and stresses that for the past two years a war has been waged just over the border. Despite the lack of coverage, it is a very real thing for these children.
Can Egypt, which has deployed 25,000 soldiers to wage war against the Islamic State in Sinai, beat the much smaller group that has managed to hammer it repeatedly? Schweitzer identifies Egyptian weakness both at the level of the "exact Egyptian operating intelligence" and in everything having to do with performance capabilities.
"Even after the mosque attack, Egypt still doesn't get it. They aren't investing enough in developing intelligence, and even for the partial intelligence that exists, they aren't putting together elite units like they should be.
Schweitzer says that Egypt has neglected Sinai for a long time. "Although some of the tribes in the desert have joined the Egyptian fight against ISIS, the Egyptians aren't creating enough motivation to bring all the tribes into the war against ISIS. The tribes remember a regime that oppressed them for many years. During those years, they made a living by thieving and smuggling drugs and weapons.
"Now, the Egyptians are talking like they're investing [resources], but they haven't managed to get all the tribes to cooperate. Sometimes when they [the Egyptians] bomb ISIS from the air, they also cause collateral damage, which doesn't make the victims more motivated to cooperate with the Egyptian regime.
"The best thing for Egypt to do, would be to get help from the U.S. and Israel, openly or not, to develop intelligence and fighting tactics that would work against Islamic State fighters in Sinai, but it looks like they haven't yet had the terrorist attack that will wake them up to that," Schweitzer explains.
According to most estimates, there were never more than a few thousand ISIS fighters in Sinai, and now their number is estimated at 1,500. Originally, they were known as Ansar Beit al-Maqdis – ("Soldiers of Jerusalem"), and most belonged to the Berikat tribe, which was formerly aligned with al-Qaida.
In November four years ago, the group swore allegiance to ISIS and changed its name to Islamic State in the Sinai Region. Bedouin comprise most of the manpower. In the past, they used tunnels to Gaza to smuggle an enormous quantity of weapons and ammunition that came from Sudan and Libya. At one point, the Egyptians counted 300 of these smuggling tunnels between Sinai and Gaza.
Islamic State in Sinai receives support from ISIS operatives who arrive from the battlefields of Syria and Iraq after the organization fell there. The major attacks the group is executing are intended to show that even after losing in Iraq and Syria, it is still alive and kicking, as well as to deter local residents from cooperating with the Egyptians against it.
When it comes to the group's attitude toward Israel, the words of the group's commander in Sinai, Abu Hajar al-Hashemi, leave no room for doubt: "The end of Israel is approaching as the sun rises on the caliphate. This is the end of their imaginary state."
