Hamas drone drops explosive device on IDF surveillance camera on Gaza border at start of Gaza war / Social media footage under section 27A of the Copyright Law
Hamas' brutal attack on Saturday included thousands of rockets, drones dropping explosives and a huge quantity of small arms, missiles and ammunition. The massive offensive came from within the Gaza Strip, a small, poor area with very few resources that has been almost completely cut off from the world for 17 years. The Gaza Strip is under siege by both Israel and Egypt bordering it, as well as an air and sea blockade by Israel and endless intelligence surveillance. In light of this, CNN examined how, under these conditions, Hamas accumulated the enormous quantity of weapons that enabled hundreds of its operatives to carry out a coordinated attack that left 1,200 murdered in Israel, thousands wounded and another 150 prisoners.
"Hamas obtains its weapons through several means: smuggling, local production, and receiving some military aid from Iran," the CIA's World Factbook said. Although no direct Iranian involvement has yet been found in Saturday's Hamas raid on the Gaza envelope, experts have no doubt that Iran is smuggling weapons into the Gaza Strip through tunnels or ships fleeing the siege in the Mediterranean.
"Hamas's tunnel infrastructure is still enormous even though Israel and Egypt downplay their importance," said Bilal Saeb, a senior fellow at the MEI think tank in Washington. Daniel Beiman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), added: "Hamas received weapons from Iran that were smuggled into Gaza through tunnels." Charles Lister, a senior fellow at MEI, said: "Iran has also launched its most advanced ballistic missiles by sea with construction equipment and materials into Gaza."
Hamas military-terrorist wing parade in Rafah/Reuters
According to Biman, Iran also helped Hamas manufacture itself and allowed the terrorist organization to build its own arsenal of weapons. On Sunday, senior Hamas official in Lebanon, Ali Baraka, was interviewed by the RTArabic news channel, saying: "We have local factories for everything - for rockets with ranges of 250 km, 160 km, 80 km and 10 km. We have factories for the production of mortars and shells, we have factories for Kalashnikov rifles and bullets. We manufacture the pills with permission from Russia."
Lister told CNN that Iran has been training Hamas engineers for almost two decades. "Years of access to more advanced systems have given Hamas engineers the knowledge needed to significantly improve its local production capacity," he said. "Hamas' missile engineers are part of Iran's regional network, so frequent training in Iran itself is an integral part of Iran's efforts to professionalize its arms throughout the Middle East."
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"Hamas' missile engineers are part of Iran's regional network" / Reuters
Another aspect of Hamas' ability to arm itself is the organization's resourcefulness and improvisational ability. When Gaza's infrastructure was destroyed by Israeli airstrikes in previous years, what remained of the heavy metal – metal pipes, rods, etc. – found its way into Hamas' weapons workshops and turned into rockets and IEDs. Researcher Ahmad Fouad al-Khatib was quoted as saying that Hamas was also recycling unexploded Israeli ammunition in Gaza. "The IDF operation indirectly supplied materials to Hamas that are prohibited for use in Gaza," he wrote in his research.
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