From rockets to marches, this is how the Palestinian resistance built its weapons with the help of Iran

In March of the year 2021, the Israeli Air Force's F-35 planes shot down two drones loaded with ammunition, which, according to Hebrew sources, were able to fly 1,200 miles, or more than 20 hours.

Although Israel used to accuse Iran of using neighboring countries - Syria, Iraq and Lebanon - as platforms to launch attacks on it, this is the first time that Tel Aviv has accused Tehran of sending direct drones deep into the occupied territories under Israeli authorities.

However, the Israeli government chose to hide the details of the incident, which it did not disclose until a year later, as the occupation army announced last March, and in the midst of the world’s preoccupation with the Russian-Ukrainian war, the downing of two drones a year ago, and Israeli officials invoked taking into account regional sensitivities. With some neighboring and friendly countries to justify delaying the announcement, but this was not the only reason that made the occupying power delay its announcement, the Israelis chose this time to coincide with the revival of the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran, as Tel Aviv is trying to intensify its warning messages against liberating billions of Iranian funds are currently frozen due to international sanctions, for fear that through these funds, Tehran will be able to develop its military arsenal that will threaten its enemies in the region.

Israel also fears that the frozen funds will help Iran recover its economic health;

This will allow it to intensify its support for the resistance movements, led by Hamas, Tel Aviv's number one enemy. This is the most important argument through which the Israeli government is trying to convince its counterparts in the West of the danger of reaching a new version of the nuclear agreement, and what this might mean for Iran to complete. Her plan to arm the Islamic resistance.

Long arm journey

In 1987, the Hamas military wing was established to support the jihadist movement’s political strategy in occupied Palestine. This establishment marked the beginning of the movement’s resistance to unite under what looks like a semi-organized army run by a structured military leadership whose goal is to carry out operations against the Israeli occupation.

The armed movement began its confrontation with Israel with bullets and homemade bombs, but soon turned to the field that Israel has always tried to prevent, which is the “rocket industry.” Although the occupying power described those rockets as “primitive,” the withdrawal of the occupation army from Gaza in 2005 It was a real opportunity for Hamas to develop this important weapon.

Initially, Hamas used the Israeli munitions that it collected after the withdrawal of the occupation forces from the Gaza Strip to produce missiles, and by the year 2006 the armament equation changed inside the Palestinian territories after Iran opened a route for smuggling missiles and ammunition into the Gaza Strip through Yemen and Sudan, under the supervision of the military leader "Mahmoud" Al-Mabhouh,” who was assassinated by Israel in the UAE in 2010. The movement then began to benefit from a secret supply line from Tehran and Damascus, the two major sponsors of the resistance at that time;

What helped Hamas acquire long-range missiles, powerful explosives, and other weapons, most of which reached the Gaza Strip through a series of narrow tunnels on the Egyptian border.

According to Israeli sources, the arms smuggling route starts from Iran towards Yemen, and from there it reaches Sudan via the Red Sea.

Later, trucks from Sudan head into the desert on the 1,000-kilometre (620-mile) journey to Egypt, where weapons are transported through tunnels dug under the Gaza Strip with the help of Bedouins.

Although Egypt and the Israeli occupation state imposed a strict siege on this process after 2007, in which Hamas managed to control Gaza and expel the Palestinian Authority from the Strip, arms smuggling operations gained momentum after the election of the late Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi in 2012.

“Foreign-made” missiles, such as the Katyusha, appeared for the first time during the Israeli aggression on Gaza at the end of 2008, and the biggest surprise for the Israelis came during the 2012 aggression, when the resistance launched long-range Iranian “Fajr-5” missiles, thus showing the role of Iran is evident in Hamas' development of its missile arsenal.

But with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi taking power in 2013, great emphasis has been placed on the movement of arms transfers to Hamas. The new Egyptian regime has choked the tunnels used by Hamas to transport weapons, closing most of the smuggling routes and underground tunnels on the border between Gaza and Egypt used to transport important weapons such as missiles Anti-tank.

These measures prompted the Palestinian resistance to move towards the local industry, and Hamas engineers achieved pleasant surprises, benefiting from Iran's technical expertise, after they brought to light rockets with a range of up to 80 kilometers (50 miles) and warheads loaded with 175 kilograms (385 pounds) of explosives.

Tehran provided designs and technical know-how that the Palestinians could use to make rockets, referring them to some common materials for this complex industry, such as pipes, castor oil, and spent Israeli ammunition.

Ephraim Sneh, a retired Israeli brigadier and former deputy defense minister, comments on this matter, saying that the missile designs are Iranian, but their production is local Palestinian, so the "Badr-3" missile launched by Hamas - for example - during the last battle with Israel last May It is based on the Iranian model known as "Al-Qasim", which was used by Iranian-backed militias in Iraq.

The latest aggression worries Israel

The last round of combat - which lasted for 11 days between Hamas and Israel last May - bore many signs of the presence of the Iranian imprint in arming the movement. In this aggression, the missiles landed at unprecedented distances in the heart of Tel Aviv and near Ben Gurion International Airport, and arrived at a port The Israeli Eilat overlooking the Red Sea is the new "Ayash-250" missile, which has a range of 155 miles.

Moreover, in this war, in which more than 4,000 rockets were fired out of an estimated arsenal of 14,000, Hamas maintained an average of 300-450 rockets per day despite Israeli counter-bombing, which is 50% to 100% higher. From the size of the fires in the previous aggression in 2014.

Palestinian rockets have also surpassed the Iron Dome, through which Israel spends tens of thousands of dollars on every missile it intercepts. Much more than what was recorded in the 2014 and 2019 rounds.

Also, in this war, Hamas used a new type of anti-tank missile, the "Kornet" missile, which caused the death of the only Israeli soldier during this conflict.

The resistance forces deployed many different combat systems, such as the Shehab Kamikaze drone, which appears to have been manufactured in Gaza.

The Palestinians also launched a remote-controlled underwater vehicle (UUV) intended to launch an attack on Israeli ships and oil platforms.

In addition to these weapons, Hamas relied, in confronting the Israeli aggression, on a series of Qassam rockets made of metal tubes, at a cost ranging between 300 and 800 dollars, which have warheads of limited range and small. R-160" and "Sejil"

Despite the strength and effectiveness of this missile arsenal, the drones remain the most dangerous obsession that haunts Tel Aviv, as these drones will undoubtedly be an important card in all the upcoming confrontations between the resistance factions and Israel, as Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz announced a few months ago that a plane had been shot down. An Iranian Shahed-141 drone entered Israeli airspace in 2018, and it was reported that the drone was launched by "Iranian envoys in Syria," and was carrying TNT explosives for Palestinian militants in the West Bank.

This great fear on the part of Israel about the drones is due to its danger in carrying out offensive military missions and achieving clear results from a distance, in addition to its ability to gather important intelligence information, according to Rami Abu Zubaydah, a Palestinian researcher specializing in the military affairs of the Palestinian resistance.

, Abu Zubaydah considered

that these planes are attending more and more in the field of military action, as they have participated in many battles in Syria, Iraq, Azerbaijan and others.

Abu Zubaydah asserts that the Israeli security and military system is concerned about Iran’s clear ability and development in the field of manufacturing drones, as Tel Aviv knows that Tehran will not be the only beneficiary of these planes, and that it will share its natural allies, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Palestine, the experiences Ideas and technology, and this was confirmed by its Yemeni ally - Ansar Allah Al Houthi Group - using drones in the attacks launched by the group on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The arms race continues

Despite the harassment and strategic shifts in the region following the recent wave of normalization with several Arab countries with the occupying state, Hamas continues its attempts to arm despite the blockade. On March 3, the Israeli occupation authorities announced that they had thwarted the smuggling of 7,000 bullets to the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli Customs Authority in Ashdod port said that 7,000 9mm bullets were seized, which were hidden in rolls of insulating materials designated for smuggling.

This news was not the first of its kind to talk about the seizure of equipment related to armaments in the Gaza Strip.

In this context, Saeed Bisharat, editor-in-chief of the Hoopod Network for Israeli Affairs, says that the issue of arms smuggling into the Gaza Strip is very complicated, and this indicates the huge effort Israel is making to prevent arms smuggling into the Strip.

, Basharat

added that the emphasis on smuggling weapons and money into the Gaza Strip increased after 2014, but arms remain a red line for Israel more than money, so all its forces are enlisting to prevent it from reaching the resistance forces.

The same spokesman said that Israel innovates every day new methods and certain mechanisms to stop weapons reaching Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and for this reason it built walls above and underground, and focused in its relations with the Egyptian regime on taking the means to prevent any smuggling, and it directed to normalize its relations with Sudan, with the aim of neutralizing this area from being a collection point for weapons before transferring them to Gaza, and the Israeli authorities spare no effort to restrict arms smuggling from Libya.

Bisharat stresses that Iran is still insisting on supporting Hamas despite the circumstances surrounding it and its preoccupation with other issues.

Bisharat stresses that Iran is still insisting on supporting Hamas despite the circumstances surrounding it and its preoccupation with other files. Creating points close to the occupation in order to deter it.

In the same context, Rami Abu Zubaydah, a researcher specializing in the military affairs of the Palestinian resistance, says that the Palestinian factions have mastered opening closed doors to deliver weapons to them. They were able - through internal experts, some of whom were trained abroad - to manufacture missiles capable of reaching every point inside the occupied interior. The resistance was also able to reach the depths of the sea to search for some remnants of war for use in the manufacture of weapons.

Abu Zubaydah pointed out in his speech to "

" that the resistance has its hidden ways through which it can enter weapons and transfer them smoothly to the Gaza Strip. Develop its military systems despite the severe siege.

However, despite this important boom in the quality of weapons that the Palestinian resistance has acquired, the difficult challenge is currently developing these weapons and access to advanced technology that makes these missiles more accurate in reaching strategic goals inside the occupied Israeli interior, and for this to happen, Iran will be More than ever, it is present in the Palestinian conflict, taking advantage of the resistance factions' supply of weapons, experience and military advisors, and the tendency of some Arab countries to catch up with the normalization train.