CNN analyzed dozens of photos and videos of Hamas militants during the surprise assault to identify the weapons used to kill at least 1,200 people in Israel. Many of the weapons appeared to be altered Russian or Chinese firearms, presumedly left behind on the battlefield in decades past that eventually made their way into the hands of Hamas terrorists, experts say.
One expert described how the intricately planned assault, in which Hamas terrorists infiltrated Israel by land, sea and air, reflects a change in Hamas’ overall military strategy. Others believe certain firearms were likely supplied from Iran, which the US State Department has said bolsters the terrorist group with money, military equipment and training.
The group operates out of Gaza, a strip of Mediterranean coastal land bordered by Israel and Egypt, which has been cut off from the rest of the world since 2007 when Hamas seized control of the territory, prompting Israel and Egypt to impose a blockade on it.
It’s fertile ground for a condemned terror group to scavenge and transform weapons for guerrilla warfare.
While the weapons are far less sophisticated than Israel’s standards – that country’s military has access to some of the best equipment the US can provide – their impact made for an unprecedented level of devastation.
“Those are weapons of mass destruction in my eyes,” said Ret. US Army Major Mike Lyons, referring to portable surface-to-air missiles that can be seen in at least one video reviewed by CNN.
But Hamas’ fighters don’t need sophisticated equipment to be deadly, Lyons said. “They just need to create terror.”...
...Hamas has long depended on rockets to fight its asymmetrical battles with Israel. On Saturday alone, the militant group claimed it fired 5,000 rockets on Israel, most of which were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system.
Still, the sheer number of rockets has at times overwhelmed the Iron Dome, a state-of-the art system equipped with a radar to detect incoming projectiles and shoot them down.
Some even landed unexploded in Israeli homes. In a short video posted on Telegram, a man shows the remains of a Hamas rocket protruding through a bedroom ceiling. The rocket appears to be an unexploded Qassam or Saraya al-Quds rocket, said a British researcher who runs Calibre Obscura, a website that identifies weapons. Both rockets are identified, the researcher noted, by the groups that use them: Hamas’ military wing, known as the Izz al-Din al-Qassam brigades; and the al-Quds brigade of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a rival Islamist group in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas produces the vast majority of its own Qassam rockets these days, said the researcher, given the difficulties of smuggling in larger rockets into the blockaded Gaza Strip. How the group manufactures the makeshift rockets is less known. In previous battles with Israel, Hamas was known to have fired rockets made of old water pipes, the researcher noted.
A senior Hamas official based in Lebanon gave details of the group’s weapons manufacturing in an edited interview with Russia Today’s Arabic-news channel RT Arabic published on their website on Sunday.
“We have local factories for everything, for rockets with ranges of 250 km, for 160 km, 80km, and 10 km. We have factories for mortars and their shells. … We have factories for Kalashnikovs (rifles) and their bullets. We’re manufacturing the bullets with permission from the Russians. We’re building it in Gaza,” Ali Baraka, head of Hamas National Relations Abroad, told the outlet.
But former US officials say there is little question the massive stockpile of weapons used in Saturday’s attack was acquired and assembled with help from Iran.
