A member of Hamas’s naval commando unit defected from the Gaza-based terror organization nearly a year ago to join the Sinai Province — the Islamic State group’s branch in the Sinai Peninsula, Palestinian sources told The Times of Israel.

Abed al-Wahad Abu Aadara, 20, from the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, was arrested approximately two months ago by Hamas while visiting Gaza due to his affiliation with IS. He has since been freed.

Although Abu Aadara is not the first Hamas operative to defect to IS, he is the first known member of the group’s naval commando unit to join its ranks.

Following the escalation in Gaza, Hamas is attempting to renew its psychological warfare; the terror organization produced a song accompanied by Hebrew animation and rhythmic music: ‘Zionist, you will perish in Gaza.’

One day following the escalation in the Gaza Strip, Hamas is already trying to work its psychological warfare to put fear in the heart of Israelis, in an attempt to deter the IDF from entering a new round of fighting in Gaza, like reported by ynetnews.com .

The terror group produced a propaganda song in Hebrew accompanied by animation, titled Zionist, You Will Perish in Gaza.

The song was uploaded to YouTube on Tuesday night and shortly thereafter, spread all over the net.

Hamas’ tactical propaganda, which distributes songs online in Hebrew, is seeking to deter Israelis from a new military operation in Gaza.

Hamas had utilized this method during Operation Protective Edge as well, and at the peak of security escalation in the West Bank last year.

However, more often than not, the songs have a catchy tune and a less than stellar Hebrew and quickly become viral in Israel, incurring the opposite effect, that of mockery.

The most renowned song from Hamas’ production house was “Attack, Execute ‘Battacks'” (illiterate misspelling in Hebrew) released at the beginning of Operation Protective Edge. The song became an online hit and naturally, the subject of mockery and ridicule.

It appears the present song will be receiving a similar dose of the same medicine.

In the present production, the song’s lyrics shift from militant messages like “Be precise—hit the Kirya” (the IDF’s headquarters in Tel Avv) and words that sound as though they were lifted off a Turkish sob song: “I will water you with cups of death, such a bitter drink” to motifs influenced by other fields, such as “I will eat you alive, tastes best without salt, Zionist—Yes, yes, you.”

The lyrics and rhythmic beat are accompanied by animation, in which rockets are being fired from the Gaza Strip to Israel, and shoulder-fired missiles are hitting renowned Israeli institutions and facilities like the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv and the Knesset in Jerusalem.

Egypt’s army killed 14 militants in an exchange of fire during a raid in central Sinai, the military spokesman said in a statement according to albawaba.com .

According to a statement published on Egypt’s army spokesman Facebook page, the military arrested 10 other militants. Three car bombs and 10 explosive devices were destroyed and weapons and communication devices were seized by the military.

Militancy inside Egypt has seen a significant rise since the military ouster of former president Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood in July 2013, following mass protests against his rule.

Most of the insurgent activities which target security personnel and facilities occur in the restive Sinai peninsula, particularly in North Sinai.

The group known as “Sinai Province”, affiliated with Daesh fighters in Syria and Iraq (ISIS), claim most of the attacks in this area.

According to separate statements by the armed forces, hundreds of suspected militants have been killed and hundreds were arrested in multiple security campaigns launched by the army over the past two years.

Islamic State ‘emir’, Ahmed Wahid al-Abed, was killed in a bomb explosion in the southeastern town of Arsal, LBCI reported on Tuesday.

Al-Abed, a Syrian hailing from al-Jarajir town in al-Qalamoun, was killed in a bomb explosion in the outskirts of Arsal, it added.

Militants from IS and Fateh al-Sham Front — formerly al-Qaida’s Syria affiliate al-Nusra Front — are entrenched in rugged areas along the undemarcated Lebanese-Syrian border and the army regularly shells their posts while Hizbullah and the Syrian army have engaged in clashes with them on the Syrian side of the border.

The two groups briefly overran the town of Arsal in August 2014 before being ousted by the army after days of deadly battles.

The retreating militants abducted more than 30 troops and policemen of whom four have been executed and nine remain in the captivity of the IS group.

Moroccan police arrested three people with links to the Islamic State (IS) group, the interior ministry said in a statement according to xinhuanet.com.

According to the ministry, the suspects were arrested in the northern city of Martil and El Jadida following investigations with the members of a recently-busted terror cell that was operating in several Moroccan cities.

On Jan. 27, Morocco’s interior ministry announced that security forces foiled an (IS) terror attack during a large-scale anti-terrorism operation.

The operation led to the bust of the seven-member cell in five cities, and the seizure of arms, suspicious products used in manufacturing explosives, and other material used in detonating explosive belts hided in a safe house in the coastal city of El Jadida, some 190 km south of the capital Rabat.

The ministry said initial investigations confirmed the arrested suspects’ involvement in the plans of the busted-cell to set up an IS-linked base under the name of “Islamic State Branch in Morocco” and carry out terror projects.

The cell members intended to meet with an explosive expert from IS branch in Libya to learn about mining and distant detonation techniques, it added.

According to official figures, Morocco busted 19 terrorist cells and arrested 273 suspects in 2016, most of them linked to the group, which control large swaths in Syria and Iraq.

A senior Hamas field commander died of wounds incurred a day earlier in an accidental blast, the Gaza-based terror group said, like reported by toi.com.

Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades, said in a statement posted to its official website that high-ranking field commander Muhammad Hemada Walid al-Quqa, 37, di

ed Sunday morning. Other reports from Gaza said he was 44 years old.

According to the statement, Quqa was “preparing equipment” in the field when he was injured in an explosion.

According to Israel’s Channel 2 news, Quqa was the head of Hamas’s explosives unit and the Qassam Brigades said he had been involved in “manufacturing and assembling explosives,” among other activities.

The Hamas commander, the statement added, was from the al-Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza.

The Palestinian website al-Resalah, which is affiliated with Hamas, said the explosion that killed Quqa occurred in the Sudaniye area in northern Gaza.

The report quoted medical sources who said the Hamas commander had been brought to the hospital with his arms and legs blown off.

The terror group held a large funeral for Quqa in Gaza on Monday, complete with signs claiming that he had been killed while “preparing something for the enemy,” the Channel 2 report noted.

Hamas, which is openly committed to the destruction of the Jewish state, daily continues to train its fighters, builds rockets and digs tunnels in preparation for another round of conflict with Israel.

Last year, 22 members of Hamas’s armed wing were killed while “preparing equipment,” the majority in a string of tunnel collapses, the terror group said last month.

Gaza terrorists have dug dozens of tunnels, many reaching across the border into Israel, to launch attacks against the Jewish state; Israel destroyed many of them during the devastating 2014 war with Hamas. It says Hamas has since been rebuilding the network, and Hamas has bragged about doing so.

Israel and Hamas have fought three wars since 2008 and Gaza has been under an Israeli blockade for a decade, imposed by Israel and Egypt to try to prevent it importing weaponry.

New satellite photos of Al Khadim air base taken in December 2016 clearly indicate that the United Arab Emirates is on the verge of deploying fighter jets to Libya, like reported by warisboring.com.

The Emirati planes would back up Libyan general Khalifa Haftar, whose Libyan National Army is one of two major regimes vying for control of the failed state.

To be clear, the UAE air force has been engaged in Libya for months, now. Emirati IOMAX AT-802 Air Tractor attack planes and Chinese-made Wing Loong drones have been flying from Al Khadim since at least July 2016.

Their pilots — most of them are American mercenaries working for Erik Prince —regularly carry out air-support missions on behalf of Libyan National Army fighters battling Islamic militants in Benghazi, on Libya’s northeastern coast.

Construction has been underway at Al Khadim in northeast Libya nonstop since the summer of 2016. In early September 2016, two small shelters appeared on the tarmac. They probably house maintainers working on the Air Tractors and Wing Loongs. Additional shelters popped up on the main tarmac in November and December 2016.

A second large parking area is also under construction in the base’s southeast corner. Shelters have begun appearing on this ramp, too. The latest satellites images, dated Dec. 17 and 30, 2016, clearly show earth-moving vehicles working on this new parking area.

Much of the equipment the Emiratis needed to build up Al Khadim arrived on Il-76 freighters. The LNA keeps one Il-76 in Tobruk. It’s blue and white, whereas the Il-76s visible in satellite imagery of Al Khadim are white.

Haftar’s allies in the Tobruk regime have employed foreign transport companies since 2015. Two of them have Il-76s in their fleet — Sky Prim Air and Oscar Jet. These two companies belong to the same Moldovan family — the Ghilans.

On Dec. 11, 2016, Oscar Jet Il-76TD with the serial ER-IAX transported a delegation from Benina to Brak Al Shati. Two days later, another Il-76 from Sky Prim Air landed by night at the same air base with a load of cargo.

It’s reasonable to assume these same aircraft maintain the air bridge to Al Khadim.

All the new shelters at the base could provide the Emiratis a lot of cover if and when they deploy more aircraft to Libya. Additional deployments — of fighter jets, specifically — are likely, as the current UAE contingent is reaching the limits of its combat capacity.

The current Air Tractors and UAVs are just barely sufficient for covering LNA operations in Benghazi, especially as the LNA succeeded in seizing the city’s Ganfouda district in late January 2017.

The LNA must also contend with escalating challenges in Libya’s oil crescent, in the center of the country. The propeller-drive Air Tractors flying from Al Khadim lack the speed and range to effectively strike targets in the oil crescent and the western city of Misrata, where many of the major militants are based.

To extend its support of the LNA into western Libya, the UAE will probably have to forward-deploy jet-powered F-16s or Mirage 2000s. The Emirates already have experience with foreign fighter deployments. The UAE air force maintains a base at Assab airport in Eritrea, from where the Emiratis operate Mirage 2000s and Wing Loongs.

The Mirage 2000s would be very effective in Libya. With the Wing Loongs helping to spot targets, the nimble Mirages could drop precision-guided munitions.

The deployment of Mirage 2000s “could eventually also allow an offensive towards Fezzan” in southwestern Libya, said Wolfgang Putszai, Austria’s former defense attaché to Italy, Greece, Tunisia and Libya.

“But there is still doubt that the LNA has the capability to take cities like Misrata,” Putszai continued. Emirati air strikes could effectively bottle up militants in the city. “The Misratan would certainly realize that they can forget any major offensive to take the oil crescent.

“Such a powerful capability would encourage the Misrata even more to seek direct negotiations with the LNA — which would be very positive.”

Lebanese media quoted security officials as saying that Abu Nidal Shihada, an administrative official at the Palestinian National Security Forces, was assaulted at Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp located near the city of Sidon, like reported by presstv.com.

The attackers shot Shihada in the leg after beating him, the sources said, adding that he was transferred to a nearby Palestinian Red Crescent clinic.

Palestinian security forces inside the camp launched an investigation into the incident, which is the second of its kind in a single week.

On January 29, the Palestinian embassy’s security officer Ismail Sharrouf survived an assassination attempt in Sidon. He suffered injuries when his car came under fire by unknown attackers.

Ain al-Hilweh houses fighters and militants belonging to various armed groups.

The camp has been the scene of violent clashes between members of the Jund al-Sham militant group and the Fatah movement, the Palestinian Authority (PA)’s ruling party, over the past few months.

In September, the Lebanese army confirmed that it had arrested a high-ranking commander of the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group at the site. Military sources said the terrorist was planning to carry out a series of attacks aimed at “inflicting the largest number of casualties and hitting the Lebanese economy and tourism sectors.”

Lebanon has been suffering from the spillover of militancy in neighboring Syria. Terrorists have been active in Lebanese areas situated close to the Syrian border.

Sunday’s attack comes about a week after the Higher Palestinian Security Committee presented a security roadmap to the Lebanese army to help restore security to the camp.

Several citizens, independent and civil society representatives rallied, Sunday morning, outside the Tunis Municipal Theatre to reaffirm their “outright opposition” to the return of Tunisian terrorists from areas of tension, like reported by tap.info.tn .

Under the banner “No to terrorists among us”, the protest was organised by the “Tamarrod” movement, the Union of Independents, the “Al-Bedira” movement and the “SOS Terrorism” association.

Protesters expressed serious concern about the fate of Tunisia, after it began to put an end to terrorism.

In this regard, they called on the government and all the state institutions to assume their responsibility in the fight against this threat and the identification of the real responsibility for funding, enrollment, training and sending young Tunisians to fight in areas of tension.

While demanding a rigorous application of the anti-terrorism law, they also urged the amendment of laws that oppose the best interests of the homeland.

Houssem El-Hammi, a member of the rally’s organising committee said the government is not serious about dealing with terrorists, especially Tunisians returning from hot spots.

“The government must treat this issue with more seriousness and rigour to better reassure Tunisians about the fate of Tunisia,” he said.

In this regard, he called for a rapid restoration of diplomatic relations with Syria for better Tunisian-Syrian coordination in terms of intelligence and security.

He also expressed his fears that these Tunisian terrorists would enter the country illegally by land and carry out terrorist attacks.

Present at this rally, media executive Taher Ben Hassine considered it essential to multiply such protests to bar the way to any attempt to vindicate these terrorists.

In this regard, he proposed staging a rally against the return of these terrorists, once a week, to raise public awareness of the scale of this threat.

Seven individuals, holding suspicious meetings in a Moorish bath in Bou Mhel-El Bassatine (Ben Arous), were arrested following reports received by the Research and Investigation Unit of the National Guard of the region, like reported by tap.info.tn.

Described as Islamists by the Ministry of the Interior, these individuals, aged between 31 and 48, chose to meet away from prying eyes in a Moorish bath after convincing the owner to reserve the place for a day.

The Public Prosecution ordered the suspects to be taken into police custody and prosecuted for suspicion of involvement in a terrorist organisation.