Missiles, drones fill arsenal of Hamas militants

How Iran’s tech and homemade weapons gave Hamas power to strike Israel.

Hamas missiles include the Iranian Fajr-3. Picture: Reuters

Hamas has built up a vast range of missiles, rockets and suicide drones in covert workshops hidden in the overcrowded city of Gaza with technical assistance and smuggled parts from Iran.

The militant group had to manage without its longstanding smuggling system for Iranian weaponry when a combined effort by Israel, Egypt and Sudan closed down the well-used route.

The smuggling trail went from Tehran to Sudan by ship; from there to warehouses in Khartoum run by the elite Quds Force, part of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; and finally through 1200 tunnels under the Sinai Peninsula border with Gaza.

Most of the secret passages were destroyed by Egypt between 2013 and 2014.

The main effort then switched to domestic production. Smuggling continues but Hamas uses the so-called ship-to-shore route: Iranian freighters or fishing vessels drop sealed capsules into the sea to be picked up by Hamas frogmen in boats, which have to evade the watchful eyes of the Israeli navy. Hamas had begun building a basic rocket, the Qassam 1, as long ago as 2001. It has since created missile research and development facilities in different parts of the Gaza Strip.

Israel has destroyed some of them with airstrikes but the rocket production line has survived, and the inventory has grown in quality and quantity.

The arsenal of weapons is estimated to total between 7000 and 10,000 rockets and munition-­carrying drones, with ranges from a few kilometres to more than 150.

Some have an Iranian imprint, such as the Fajr-3 and Fajr-5.

Russian-made Grad rockets are among the mix of homegrown and foreign weaponry.

Fabian Hinz, a missile expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, in London, said two rockets in particular demonstrated the progress Hamas had made in the past two years: the R-160, with a range of about 160km, and the Ayyash-250, with a range of 250km.

“They don’t need that sort of range – Gaza to Jerusalem is just 48 miles (77km) – but it may be about prestige,” Mr Hinz said.

“Hamas has also demonstrated the dramatic improvements in terms of missile quantity and launch rate.”

The one riddle is why there has been no evidence yet of precision guidance systems. Mr Hinz said Iran was working with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon to develop precision-guided missiles but it wasn’t clear whether Tehran had collaborated with Hamas on such systems. Compared with the more advanced weaponry developed by Hezbollah, Mr Hinz said Hamas rockets were largely “low-tech”.

This is underlined by the appearance of the first Hamas air defence system, the Mubar-1. It has no guidance mechanism and seems to consist of a basic artillery rocket aimed at incoming Israeli aircraft or drones.

THE TIMES