Hamas
HamasReuters

Hamas rejected on Thursday a report that aired on Egyptian state television and which said that the Gaza-based terror group has been involved in teaching Islamists in Egypt how to plant bombs in cars and that it had given them landmines.

“This is completely incorrect,” Fawzi Barhoum, spokesman for Hamas which controls Gaza, said, according to Reuters.

Barhoum claimed that the report was an “attempt to demonize Hamas”.

Hamas is an offshoot of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. It enjoyed close ties to Islamist President Mohammed Morsi and has been “feeling the heat” from Egypt's new army-backed leadership, which deposed Morsi in July.

The Sinai has become increasingly lawless since the fall of former president Hosni Mubarak in February 2011, and the terror attacks have only increased since Morsi’s removal.

Egypt’s army has been engaging in a military offensive against Sinai terrorists and, last weekend at least 10 Islamist terrorists were killed as the army launched an air and ground assault in the Sinai.

Twin car bomb blasts on Wednesday targeting Egypt's army killed at least six soldiers in Rafah on the border with Gaza.

Egypt has been clamping down on the smuggling tunnels which are used to smuggle goods but also arms and terrorists between Gaza and the Sinai.

On Thursday, as it continues to crack down on terrorists, it was reported that two Egyptian army tanks have crossed an initial border fence leading to Gaza for the first time.

The Hamas administration in Gaza neither confirmed nor denied the incursion, only commenting that no Egyptian tanks had actually entered the Gaza Strip itself.