Hamas Rocketfire Cooked Up by Iran
While some media outlets continue to push the "home-made Hamas rockets" trope, the truth re the projectiles' provenance remains in plain sight:
Ali Hashem writes that since 2006, Iran has helped Hamas develop an indigenous rocket capability.
“According to information acquired by Al-Monitor from sources in Tehran, Gaza and Beirut, a new strategy was adopted after the July/August 2006 war in Lebanon with respect to military support. The main goal was protecting the fighting groups from the danger of a military siege by making them capable of producing as many rockets as they need on the spot,” Hashem reports.
A senior Hamas official told Palestine Pulse’s Adnan Abu Amer, “Another motive that led [the Izz ad-Din] al-Qassam [Brigades] to start local production of rockets is the closure of tunnels by Egypt. This restricted the entry of raw materials needed for the manufacturing of rockets. However, despite the cut-off of the main source of supply of al-Qassam with rockets of multiple ranges from different origins, this did not prevent it from producing local rockets reaching targets deeper inside Israel.”
“The Iranians essentially smuggled in rockets via the brains of Palestinians, keeping rocket-making knowledge intact despite wars and attacks. It’s the same strategy the Iranians adopted in their nuclear program, under the philosophy that knowledge can’t be bombed,” Hashem adds.
Perhaps Israel should retaliate on Iran by bombing some Iranian nuclear facilities?
ReplyDeleteShouldn't Iran be sanctioned for supplying missiles that it knows will be used against civilians?