A Gaza Blowup

Things in Gaza are coming to a head, and it completely the result of Hamas and other Islamists taking offense with each other. Al Qaeda-aligned groups in Gaza don't think that Hamas is sufficiently Islamist enough, even as Hamas has been busy cracking down on what it calls un-Islamic behavior. One of these groups, Jund Ansar Allah, defied Hamas rule and claimed Gaza to be an Islamic emirate.

Hamas didn't like that one bit.

So, they're battling among the mosques.

The fighting erupted Friday when Hamas security men surrounded a mosque in the southern Gaza town of Rafah on the Egypt border where about 100 members of Jund Ansar Allah, or the Soldiers of the Companions of God, were holed up.

Flares lit up the sky overnight as Hamas machine gun fire and rocket propelled grenades slammed into the mosque. The militants inside the structure returned fire with automatic weapons and grenades of their own.

The head of the radical Islamic group, Abdel-Latif Moussa, was killed when fighting resumed after dawn Saturday, Ihab Ghussein, a Hamas Interior Ministry spokesman, told The Associated Press.

He said Moussa detonated an explosives vest he was wearing during the fighting.

"The so-called Moussa has committed suicide ... killing a mediator who had been sent to him to persuade him and his followers to hand themselves over to the government," Ghussein said.

Also killed in the fighting between Hamas and this group was one of the Hamas terrorists responsible for the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Note that Hamas and the Islamists do not care that they're in mosques; they're actively fighting in and among them; their leaders purposefully wear suicide vests so as to maximize casualties should they be confronted, and all are armed to the teeth.

Hamas is continuing its offensive against the Jund, arresting other members of the terror group.