This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.Non-state opponents The Sheikh Omar Hadid Brigade (Arabic: لواء الشيخ عمر حديد, romanized: Liwāʾ ash-Shaykh ʿUmar Ḥadīd), also known as Islamic State in Gaza,[7] was an Islamist militant[1] group affiliated with the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant that was reportedly active in the Gaza Strip around 2015.

In other words, the group advocates (see the Pan-Islamism Wikipedia page for more details): "...a form of religious nationalism [that] differentiates itself from other pan-nationalistic ideologies, for example Pan-Arabism, by excluding culture and ethnicity as primary factors towards unification..."The Sheikh Omar Hadid Brigade first emerged from the Al-Qaeda linked (Sinai and Gaza-based) Ansar Bait al-Maqdis group, in a similar way that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) emerged from Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

On November 10, 2014, numerous members of Ansar Bait al-Maqdis pledged allegiance to ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,[19] culminating in the eventual creation of the Sheikh Omar Hadid Brigade on May 31, 2015.

[20][21] This may have provided an incentive for ex-Ansar Bait al-Maqdis ISIL-affiliated militants to organise themselves, sparking the creation of the brigade in late May of that year.

[25] ISIL affiliates in the Palestinian Territories may have used this event to their advantage, recruiting sufficient numbers of Islamists to form a viable organisation.