"When the number of rockets fired by Hamas increases in each round of fighting than the previous round, this indicates that we failed to deter them, although every time we kill and injure more...we kill thousands, but this does not work."
Israeli scholar Uri Goldberg
On October 26, 2001, 20 years ago, the first missile of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), was launched at the settlement of Sderot in the occupied territories.
The missile, which bore the name "Qassam 1", was very primitive, with a range of only 2 to 3 kilometers, with a warhead of limited capabilities.
On May 11, 2021, the Al-Qassam Brigades announced that it bombed Tel Aviv and its suburbs with 130 missiles in response to the Israeli air force targeting residential buildings in the Gaza Strip, and the brigades said that this missile strike is the largest bombing operation launched by the resistance on Tel Aviv.
And it was not satisfied with that, as it announced that it had targeted the cities of Ashkelon and Ashdod with 137 heavy-caliber missiles within 5 minutes, as a result of which the Katsa fuel pipeline was targeted south of Ashkelon.
Two days later, Abu Obeida, the military spokesman for the Al-Qassam Brigades, announced that the brigades had entered the “Ayash 250” missile into service, to be the latest to date and the longest range, as its range exceeds 250 km and the destructive power is the largest, according to the description of the official Qassam website.
This response showed the clear development achieved by the Palestinian resistance's missiles in terms of range, density, and even the ability to bypass and disable Israeli defense systems such as the Iron Dome, which prompted the occupation, in various rounds of escalation, to suspend air traffic at Ben Gurion Airport, while stopping The educational activity, in addition to the orders that have become familiar to the residents of the occupied entity, to issue decisions by the government that recommend, and sometimes force, the residents of the entity to enter shelters.
A video clip broadcast by Channel 12 on Israeli television - during the "Sword of Jerusalem" war that broke out last year - showed flames rising in a huge fuel depot near the coastal city of Ashkelon, south of Tel Aviv, to the extent that the Israeli newspaper Maariv titled its editorial with "The State is Burning" ".
This development achieved by the Palestinian rockets, in light of the siege and the lack of capabilities, prompts us to address the features of the development of the rockets of the Palestinian resistance, represented by the Al-Qassam Brigades, as the owner of the first local industrialization project, and the pioneer in this field, in light of the available information, from its inception, until today. .
As you watch the resistance’s long-range missiles with great destructive capabilities being launched from Gaza
, I know that the first person who started this road was the Qassam martyr Nidal Farha, the Qassam missile factory (1),
as well as the first who tried to manufacture a drone.
He was assassinated in 2003 during the manufacture of the Ababil plane (1).
— Mohammed S AL-Namee 🇵🇸 (@moh_namee) December 29, 2020
It began with the aforementioned "Qassam 1" missile, which was first launched at the beginning of the second intifada, specifically on October 26, 2001, towards the Sderot settlements in the occupied territories.
Its launch was the inauguration of the Palestinian missile program, by Nidal Farhat, who was the first to build a Palestinian missile with his colleague Tito Mahmoud Masoud, in addition to the chief engineer of Al-Qassam, Adnan Al-Ghoul.
"Qassam 1" has relatively primitive specifications, as its length does not exceed 70 cm, its diameter is about 8 cm, its range does not exceed 3 km, and it carries an explosive warhead weighing 1 kg of high explosive TNT. The missile is launched by a launcher. Inaccurate in hitting the target.
After the launch of this missile, the Israeli newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, described the event at the time, on its website, saying that the missile upset the military balance and for the first time created a deterrent force, directly affecting Israel's home front.
The greatest danger posed by missiles is primarily psychological, not physical.
In the following years, more advanced Qassam rockets began to appear, led by the "Qassam 2", which was first launched in 2002, which is about 12 cm long with a headload of more than 5 to 6 kilograms of TNT, and its range ranges from 9 – 12 km, allowing it to reach residential areas.
As for the "Qassam 3", it came to light in 2005, with a range of 15-17 kilometers, with a head load of 4.5 kilograms of explosive.
Members of Hamas prepare to launch a Qassam 2 rocket.
It is the first of Hamas' long-range missiles, and it is well known that it bears, through its first symbols, the names of the movement's martyred leaders.
The M75 missile was named after the leader Ibrahim Al-Maqadmeh.
This missile was launched in 2012 in response to the assassination of the Qassam Brigades' Chief of Staff, the martyr Ahmed al-Jabari. It has a range of 75 to 80 kilometers, and is the first missile to be fired at Ben Gurion Airport.
Also known as the "Sajjil" missile, it is the first Qassam rocket to reach the occupied city of Lydda.
It was first launched in 2014 and has a range of 55 km.
The J80 missile is the first missile fired towards Tel Aviv in the history of the conflict with the Israeli occupation, according to what the brigades announced on its official website.
This missile has a distinct memory, as the battalions challenged the occupation forces to prevent the Iron Dome from intercepting this generation of missiles, and announced in the 2014 “Eat Storm” war that they would bomb “Tel Aviv” at exactly the hour with J80 missiles, and so did, so that the Iron Dome failed to intercept them. .
This missile was first launched in 2014, and has a range of 80 km.
The missile is the first of its kind to hit the city of Haifa, and was named after the martyr leader Abdel Aziz Al-Rantissi, and its importance - according to the brigades - lies in its reaching farther areas, and its ability to strike the Israeli depth at a distance of more than 100 km from the Gaza Strip.
This missile was first launched in 2015, and is believed to have a range of more than 160 km.
Al-Qassam Brigades reveals that the missile strike it directed at Jerusalem yesterday afternoon was carried out with A120 missiles, named after the Qassam commander, Raed Al-Attar. twitter.com/h11w0PHZtj
- Hڛۜٻۧnۨ (@husssein123) May 11, 2021
It is one of the latest rockets announced by the Al-Qassam Brigades. It was named after the martyred leader of the Brigades, Raed Al-Attar. It carries explosive warheads with high destructive power, and its range is 120 kilometers.
According to the official website of the Qassam Brigades, this generation of rockets was used for the first time in bombing settlements in the outskirts of occupied Jerusalem on the evening of Monday, May 10, before it was later used to launch a missile strike on Tel Aviv and its suburbs, killing two Israelis and wounding about 30 others.
The martyrs of Gaza are not just numbers..
Al-Qassam Brigades enters the SH85 missile into service, after the Qassam commander Muhammad Abu Shamala# Saif_Al-Quds pic.twitter.com/L5exqAjTQt
- Khaddash (@khaddash21) May 12, 2021
The Al-Qassam Brigades revealed the SH85 missiles, which were named after the martyr leader Muhammad Abu Shamala. The brigades used this type of missile for the first time in the missile strike it launched at dawn today, Wednesday, May 12, on Tel Aviv and Ben Gurion Airport, which resulted in a number of casualties. Of the dead and wounded, and a large number of houses were damaged.
The range of this new Qassam missile is 85 km.
As for the latest missile, which we referred to above as the "Ayyash 250", it is the longest range so far in light of what has been announced, and it is attributed to one of the most prominent leaders of the battalions, the martyr Yahya Ayyash.
It was launched for the first time today, May 13, 2021, towards Ramon Airport in southern Palestine, about 220 km from Gaza.
After that, Abu Obeida declares, "Every point from the north of Palestine to its south is within the range of our missiles."