Hamas: 'There will be an explosion' unless Israel lifts Gaza blockade

Palestinian terrorist movement makes threat at an event in Gaza that presented a model of the Israeli bus that exploded in a Hamas bombing in Jerusalem last week.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
Updated: APRIL 28, 2016 22:56
Palestinian Hamas militants take part in a protest against the Israeli police raid on Jerusalem's al-Aksa mosque in Khan Yunis (photo credit: REUTERS)
Palestinian Hamas militants take part in a protest against the Israeli police raid on Jerusalem's al-Aksa mosque in Khan Yunis
(photo credit: REUTERS)
Hamas threatened on Thursday that unless Israel lifts its blockade on the Gaza Strip, "there will be an explosion," Channel 2 reported
The report cited a statement issued by the spokesman of the Palestinian terrorist movement's military wing at an event that presented a model of the Israeli bus that exploded in a bombing in Jerusalem claimed by Hamas last week.
Hamas deputy leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, also spoke at the event and charged that the latest Hamas-claimed terrorist attack proved that the organization had not given up the "resistance option" against Israel.
Thursday's threat came as Israeli Jews were celebrating the culmination of the Passover holiday.
The Hamas threat did not specify what exactly the said explosion referred to.
Last Thursday, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) confirmed the identity of the Palestinian who detonated a bomb on the Egged bus in Jerusalem.
The confirmation comes less than 24 hours after Hamas claimed responsibility, and lauded its operative, Abdel Hamid Abu Srour, 19, of Beit Jala near Bethlehem, for carrying out the attack that wounded 20 men, women and children, seven of them seriously.
Srour died last Wednesday night at the capital’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center following multiple surgeries after his legs were blown off in the explosion.
The explosion on Moshe Baram Street, a major thoroughfare in the southern part of the city, triggered an inferno that engulfed the No. 12 bus as well as a second, empty, Egged bus and car. Six fire trucks were needed to extinguish the blaze, which reduced all three vehicles to charred metal.
None of the passengers sustained critical injuries, with the only death being Srour’s.
Daniel K. Eisenbud contributed to this report.