AT LARGE
- Full name: Hamza Adel Mohammed al-Zamili
- Pseudonym: Abu Kazem al-Maqdisi, Kazem al-Ghazawi
- Alternatives: N/a
- Location: Sinai, fmr Gaza Strip
- Affiliation: Islamic State’s Province of Sinai [DaIWS]
Hamza al-Zamili (°1992) is an Islamist militant from the Gazan town of Rafah. Before turning to jihad, he used drugs and was involved in theft.1 Zamili was also accused of a sex attack. He was disowned by his father after having beaten him.2 One of his brothers fought with a local branch of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [DaIISh; Dawlat al-Islamiya fi-Iraq wal ash-Sham] in Libya where he died in October 2016.3
Zamili joined the DaIISh branch on the Sinai Peninsula in the mid-2010s. He went on to serve as a shari’a judge for the Islamic State’s Province of Sinai [DaIWS; Dawlat al-Islamiya Wilayat Sina’a] and at one point became the deputy of the group’s top jurisprudence official Mohammed al-Saidi.4 Zamili was linked to the November 2017 massacre of more than 300 villagers at a mosque in Rawda, although his precise role in the incident has not been clarified.5
Zamili is known for his hatred of the Gaza-based Islamic Resistance Movement [HAMAS; Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya]. He was at the forefront of the DaIWS’ clampdown on cooperation between Sinai-based jihadis and the Gazan movement in 2017 and 2018. Zamili appeared in a January 2018 propaganda video in which he sharply denounced HAMAS and subsequently presided over the execution of a man who had smuggled weapons to the group.6 Zamili has also tried to incite followers of the DaIISh in the Gaza Strip to launch attacks against HAMAS.7
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