Hamas armed wing accused of attacks inside Egypt

An Egyptian court has banned the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, declaring it a "terrorist group", a judiciary official has said.

The verdict on Saturday followed a complaint from a lawyer accusing the brigades of direct involvement in "terrorist operations" in the Sinai, a court official said.

The lawyer also accused the movement of using tunnels under the border between Egypt and Gaza to smuggle arms used in attacks against the police and army, the official said.

In the ruling, the judge said that "the documents submitted by the plaintiff to the court showed that the organisation has conducted attacks... that targeted the military and the Egyptian police and facilities."

A Hamas spokesman in Gaza said the armed wing should not be dragged into "Egypt's internal affairs".

Egypt's military says it has destroyed more than 1,600 tunnels in the border area since the removal of Mohamed Morsi from the presidency by the army in July last year, and the election of the current president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Egypt created a 500m buffer zone on the border with Gaza in October to prevent infiltration, after the deaths of 30 Egyptian soldiers in an attacked claimed by an al-Qaeda affiliate. That buffer zone was doubled earlier this month.

Egypt has provided no evidence of involvement in Sinai attacks by the Qassam Brigades.

Hamas was an ally of the Muslim Brotherhood backed Morsi, who is now on trial for aiding "foreign spies" from the group. Last March, Cairo banned and outlawed Hamas operations on Egyptian soil, and ordered the freezing of its assets.