On Tuesday, March 4, an Egyptian court ordered the banning of Hamas work and activities in Egypt.  The case was brought by a contingent of Egyptian lawyers in 2013. The lawsuit sought the designation of Hamas as a terrorist organization and the banning of Hamas in Egypt.

In the wake of the ruling, there are indications that the Egyptian government is taking action in preparation to revoke the citizenship of Egyptians who are members of Hamas.

Rumors about the revocation of citizenship for Egyptian members of Hamas have been circulating for several months, but Tuesday’s court decision gave the initiative an official governmental imprimatur.

The basis for the Egyptian court’s ruling was national security. There have been several major terrorist incidents in Egypt, in which Hamas and Hamas-affiliated Egyptians allegedly were involved.

Hamas is the Palestinian Arab offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, the party of ousted Egyptian President Mohamad Morsi. During his presidential tenure, thousands of Palestinian Arabs, including Hamas leaders such as Mahmoud Zahar, were granted Egyptian citizenship.

Since Morsi’s ouster, Egyptian authorities have destroyed thousands of tunnels used for smuggling between Egypt and Gaza. This, of course, has served to undergird Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza which was imposed to prevent the smuggling into the Strip of weapons for use against the Jewish State.

The unsurprising response of Hamas spokespeople is that Egypt is aiding the “Zionist entity” by punishing those bent on Israel’s destruction.

Israeli soldiers on patrol at the Gaza security fence shot at a mob of hundreds of rock-throwing Arabs Tuesday, two of whom sustained moderate gunshot wounds.

The rioters also burned tires that were rolled towards the soldiers. None of the soldiers were wounded.

The Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), soldiers and police have arrested 15 Hamas members in the past several weeks on suspicion of carrying out rock-throwing and Molotov cocktail attacks on Highway 443, which connects Samaria, Jerusalem, the city of Modi’in and Ben Gurion Airport.

Several of those arrested are returnees to terror, having previously been jailed for attacks against Jews. Military official said there is not only a growing trend of the “revolving door terrorists” phenomena, but that the terrorist also are improving their methods and involvement.

Israel previously has received hundreds of terrorists who signed a piece of paper promising they would behave nicely and would not return to terror.

Since then, the released prisoners who returned to their favorite occupation of terror have killed more than 120 Jews the past several years.

Islamic law forbids a one-way trip to Mars, a “fatwa” Muslim religious committee has ruled in the UAE (United Arab Emirates), the Khaleej Times reported Wednesday.

“Such a one-way journey poses a real risk to life, and that can never be justified in Islam,” the committee said. “There is a possibility that an individual who travels to planet Mars may not be able to remain alive there, and is more vulnerable to death.”

The fatwa committee is under the jurisdiction of the General Authority of Islamic Affairs and Endowment in the UAE. Even worse than dying after a move to the red planet, the Muslim would meet his Maker for no “righteous reason” and therefore would be subject to “punishment similar to that of suicide in the Hereafter,” the committee warned.

Committee chairman Professor Dr. Farooq Hamada was quoted by the newspaper as saying, “Protecting life against all possible dangers and keeping it safe is an issue agreed upon by all religions and is clearly stipulated in verse 4/29 of the Holy Quran: Do not kill yourselves or one another. Indeed, Allah is to you ever Merciful.”

Really?

Does that mean that the Quran forbids Muslims to be suicide bombers? After all, the professor did say that the Muslim holy book says one should not kill himself.

I am not an expert in the Quran. In fact, I never have opened the book. But it seems to me that lots of holy Muslims say that suicide missions are not only not forbidden but also are a mitzvah, pardon the expression. There probably is a large footnote somewhere in the Quran that advises that suicide missions are forbidden – unless they blow up Jews.

But let’s get back to an expert such as Prof. Hamada.

His fatwa was in response to a plan by a Dutch company called Mars One to invite volunteers to fly and live on Mars while taking into account it would be a one-way ticket since there is no technology on the market for bringing them back to Earth.

Thousands of volunteers have signed up to pay $38 for the journey, including 500 Saudis and other Arabs, the Khaleej newspaper stated.

The professor declared, “This is an absolutely baseless and unacceptable belief because not even an atom falls outside the purview of Allah, the Creator of everything. This has also been clearly underscored in verse 19&20/93 of the Holy Quran in which Allah says, “There is no one in the heavens and earth but that he comes to the Most Merciful as a servant. (Indeed) He has enumerated them and counted them a (full) counting.”

Islamic researcher Dr. Shaikh Mohammed Al Ashmawy added to the religious discourse on the verse and concluded that “Almighty Allah said in verse 2/195 in the Holy Quran: Do not throw yourselves with your own hands into destruction.”

Sheikh Mohammed Yusuf, Imam of the Amena mosque, said: “Man’s life is not his or her own property; it is God’s creation, and therefore suicide is prohibited in all religions, and of course by law.”

Where were these guys when Palestinian Authority terrorists were blowing up, and still are trying to blow up Jews, and Hezbollah terrorists were blowing up and still are blowing up Sunni Muslims?

Where were these leading religious figures on Sept. 10, 2011, or even the day after 9/11?

And if Mahmoud Abbas really wants to control terror, why doesn’t he ask Prof. Hamada to make an exception and allow suicide bombers to take a one-way trip to Mars.

I am more than willing to put up the 38 bucks.

Gaza’s first personal security business has opened up, but its owner says terrorists will not be accepted as customers.

“Secure Land” director Abdul Qader al-Arbid told the Chinese news agency Xinhua that clients will; include banks, hotels, celebrities and banks but not terrorists looking for protection from rival gangs.

“We only work with the private sector,” Arbid said. “This is how security companies work across the world.”

The company’s bodyguards’ first assignment last week was to protect Mohammed Assaf, the winner of the Arab Idol singing competition. Hamas has allowed the company’s 32 security officers to use light weapons, when necessary,

Secure Land also will not provide bodyguards for international aid organizations, meaning that UNRWA, which has increasingly been confronted by Hamas, will have to find its own solution to keep its workers alive.

“We have no problems to have such companies here. We are ready to support and help them in their job,” said Islam Shawan, spokesman for the Interior Ministry of Hamas.

The Palestinian Authority announced on Sunday that “the part that defines the religion of the Palestinian citizen has been erased” has been erased from identification cards.

Hassan Olwi, a director in the Palestinian Ministry of Interior, told the Chinese news agency Xinhua that the decision was made a few days ago in accordance with PA law upholding religious and racial equality.

Removing religious identity may be aimed at undermining Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s demand that Abbas recognize Israel as a “Jewish state.” After all, if Palestinian Authority Arabs are not defined as Christians or Muslims, then why Israelis should be defined as Jews, Muslims, Christians or whatever?

More interesting, “religious and racial equality” apparently does not include allowing Jews to live in a future Palestinian Authority country.

However, Hamas, views the announcement exactly in the opposite.

Hamas official Taher Al-Nunu charged that Abbas “is preparing the way for the execution of Kerry’s plan which demands that the Palestinian Authority absorb Jewish settlers into the Palestinian society as binational citizens of its proposed state,” the terrorist organization’s website stated on Monday.

Hamas has blocked the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East from introducing new textbooks for 7th-9th grade students in Gaza because they do not match the Palestinian terrorist group’s violence-driven ideology.

“There is a tremendous focus [in the textbooks] on the peaceful resistance as the only tool to achieve freedom and independence,” said Motesem al-Minawi, a spokesman for the education ministry in Hamas-governed Gaza, the Associated Press reported. Hamas says it prefers “armed resistance” against Israel.

It has been going on for several months, but now it’s official, as reported by the Palestinian Ma’an news agency, Egyptian border forces destroyed 10 smuggling tunnels and seven homes in the Sinai on Saturday as part of their new campaign to create a 500 yard wide buffer zone (5 football fields) along the border with the Gaza Strip.

The campaign began with a military operation in the border town of Rafah, where tunnels leading into the Gaza Strip were targeted in border neighborhoods, an Egyptian security source told Ma’an.

The source added that the tunnels were destroyed and the homes they were located in were blown up. The move was part of a wider campaign to set up a buffer zone along the border with Gaza in Rafah that would extend 300 meters in populated areas and 500 meters in open areas.

If anyone was wondering what motivated the Egyptians to act so emphatically to separate themselves from the Hams governed Gaza Strip, the same source also told Ma’an that Egyptian army forces on Saturday successfully foiled three explosive devices placed in military vehicles and armored cars in Sheikh Zuwaid, including two that were placed near the Sheikh Zuweid Hospital and a third on the road to a nearby village south of Sheikh Zuewid.

They’ve had enough of the pesky Palestinian terrorists spreading death wherever they turn, so they cut them off. Let Turkey help them.

The source added that Egyptian army forces raided “militant strongholds” in the village of al-Kharuba south of Sheikh Zuweid and destroyed three homes and five “hideouts.” Oh, and this is rich: they also destroyed an olive grove that was reportedly used to hide terrorists following attacks taking place on the nearby road to Rafah International crossing.

Ma’an reminded readers that until July 2013 tunnels connecting Gaza to Egypt provided a vital lifeline for the territory which was facing a “crippling Israeli blockade” since 2006. But since the coup against Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood president Morsi in July, Egypt has strictly enforced a blockade of its own and caved in the tunnels.

Egyptian Maj. Gen. Ahmad Ibrahim said last October that nearly 800 tunnels had been destroyed since the Morsi toppling, an estimated 95 percent of previously existing tunnels. Last night 10 more went under.

A day before the Egyptian action, during a rally in Rafah, Sami Abu Zuhri, a senior spokesman for Hamas, rebuked Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to withdraw from negotiations with the U.S. and Israel, as the talks only serve to “terminate the question of Palestine and what is left of Palestinian rights and principles.”

In other words, by ostensibly reaching a resolution for the Palestinian’s plight the imagined peace deal would effectively end the struggle for a resolution to the Palestinian plight. Must be a chicken and egg thing.

“Nobody has authorized you (Abbas) to speak on behalf of the Palestinian people, or on behalf of Hamas or any other faction,” Abu Zuhri said. “Why don’t you tell the truth about what is going on in the secret negotiations? If you are honest, go out to your people and tell the truth and give them details.”

Back in 2006, Sami Abu Zuhri was trying to cross from Egypt into Gaza in Rafah, when he dropped a money belt with 900,000 euros in it. The law is one must declare any sum above $2,000. Abu Zuhri said it was all private donations. For the orphans.

Anyway, the Hamas spokesman also declared his movement would regard any international military presence within a future Palestinian state as “occupation” forces. So American and NATO troops are as bad as the IDF as far as Hamas is concerned.