Hamas isn't extreme enough, for many in Gaza
(Al Arabiya) ...Bandleader Jamal Al-Bayouk said he and his musicians would not risk performing in the southern Gaza Strip any more after extremists threatened to kill them at a wedding party.
They had just finished performing east of Khan Younis when armed militants burst in, set fire to $40,000 worth of instruments and fired shots between the legs of band members.
“One gunman told another: Don’t shoot between the legs. Shoot at the legs!” Bayouk told Reuters.
“Another told me: Prepare for death, you immoral infidel,” the 49-year-old man said, at the Gaza shop where he fixes musical instruments and rents sound systems.
He said several other singers and members of bands had been beaten up by Qaeda style jihadists who disapprove of their music and added that in his opinion there could be further attacks as summer begins and people hold weddings and parties.
The threat comes from Salafi jihadists whose agenda of global holy war against the West is against the nationalist goals of Gaza’s rulers Hamas, an Islamist movement which denies seeking to create a theocracy in the enclave.
While seen in Israel as a dangerously fundamentalist enemy force, Hamas is not Islamist enough in the eyes of hardline groups which have stepped up attacks in the Gaza Strip over the past several months, targeting Hamas security men and offices.
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