Egyptian intelligence made a request to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, using senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar as an intermediary, to extradite members of  the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ paramilitary wing, according to an al-Quds newspaper report on Thursday.

A senior official informed the newspaper that the three militants provided indirect support to radical groups in Sinai, and are connected to weapons smuggling as well.

According to a security official in Ramallah, the three militants, Iman Nufal, Riyadh al-Atar, and Mohammed Sabu Shimleh, are connected to Hamas’s forces in the southern part of the Gaza strip, and have refused to turn themselves over to the Eyptians.

Al-Quds also reported that on Thursday morning, that the Israeli Mossad had transferred a list of names to Egyptian Intelligence that contained nine names of terrorists connected to the attack in Rafah. Armed attackers from Sinai breached Israel’s border on Sunday night, in an armored personnel carrier that was stolen in a raid on an Egyptian police station, in which around 16 Egyptian policemen were killed.

Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook, Deputy Chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau, said that the nine are connected to a group called “The Armies of Monotheism and Jihad in Palestine,” and their names are held by Egyptian intelligence.

Abu Marzook claimed that Israeli forces killed two of the nine terrorists near the location of the attack. Ahmed Salaam, one of the nine, had attempted to escape into Gaza. Abu Marzook stressed that 9 militants took part in the attack, not 35, as the Egyptians claimed. Abu Marzook blamed the Mossad for the attack once again.