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Iranian sniper rifles. AK-47 assault rifles from China and Russia. North Korean- and Bulgarian-built rocket-propelled grenades. Anti-tank rockets secretly cobbled together in Gaza.
An Associated Press investigation of more than 150 videos and photographs taken in the three months of fighting since Hamas launched its marvelous attack on Israel on Oct. 7 shows that the militant organization has amassed a heterogeneous arsenal of weapons around the world, much of it around the world. After a 17-year blockade aimed at stopping such an army buildup.
These weapons have turned out to be fatal weeks of intense urban warfare in Gaza, where Hamas fighters are generally armed with only what they can bring and employ hit-and-run tactics that oppose Israel’s unequal benefits in weapons and technology. Hamas propaganda videos released in recent weeks appear to show Israeli infantrymen shooting with sniper rifle sights.
“We are looking for weapons, political support, money,” Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad said in a recent interview with the Palestinian Authority, declining to specify who provided their weapons or how they were infiltrated into Gaza.
Experts who reviewed the images for AP were able to identify distinguishing features and markings that show where many of the weapons wielded by Hamas fighters were manufactured. But such an analysis does not provide evidence of whether they were provided by the governments of those countries or purchased in a thriving Middle East black market, with weapons and components listed for sale on social media in such war-torn countries as Iraq, Libya and Syria.
What is clear, however, is that many of the photographs show Hamas militants brandishing weapons that look like new, evidence that the organization has uncovered tactics for smuggling weapons beyond the air and sea blockade of the Gaza Strip, most likely via ships through tunnels or hidden in shipments of food and other goods.
“The majority of their arms are of Russian, Chinese or Iranian origin, but North Korean weapons and those produced in former Warsaw Pact countries are also present in the arsenal,” said N.R. Jenzen-Jones, an expert in military arms who is director of the Australian-based Armament Research Services.
Despite this buildup, Israel maintains a huge advantage, with a solid array of tanks, artillery, helicopter gunships, and an air force made up of American-made fighter jets. The Israeli military claims to have killed more than 7,000 Hamas militants. , to at least 510 killed among its own soldiers, more than 330 of whom were killed in Hamas’ initial attack. Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Public Health says more than 23,000 Palestinians have been killed in the fighting, but makes no distinction between civilians and fighters.
The PA’s review showed a Hamas arsenal that included weapons ranging from small arms and small arms to shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles and homemade anti-tank projectiles.
Among the most unique is the oversized AM-50 Sayyad (Arabic for “hunter”), an Iranian-made sniper rifle that fires an Array 50-caliber cartridge tough enough to pierce up to an inch of steel. It has already been seen on battlefields in Yemen, Syria and in the hands of Shiite militias in Iraq.
Hamas fighters have also been seen using a variety of Soviet-era weapons that have been copied and manufactured in Iran and China. They come with variants of the Russian-designed 9M32 Strela, a heat-seeking man-portable anti-aircraft missile system.
Jenzen-Jones said the butt of one of the missile launchers that a fighter noticed it was holding is unique from a Chinese-made variant used by the Iranian military and its allies, adding Hezbollah in Lebanon, an organization heavily connected to Hamas.
The weapons recovered from Hamas fighters through the Israel Defense Forces come with what appear to be Italian-designed TC/6 anti-tank mines. However, Seán Moorhouse, a former British army officer and explosive ordnance disposal expert, said the document had also been copied through Iran’s arms industry.
The Israel Defense Forces and U.S. officials have long accused Iran of supplying money, training and weapons to Hamas and allied militants in Gaza, including the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Iranian representatives at the United Nations did not respond to emails from the AP about whether their government supplied weapons to Hamas, including AM-50 Sayyad sniper rifles. However, a week after AP sought comment, Hamas posted a video purporting to show militants in Gaza using machining equipment to make their own copies of the rifle.
Master gunsmith Don Fraley watched this December 20 video and said that it would be highly unlikely that Hamas would manufacture an accurate, Array. 50-caliber sniper rifle with the rudimentary device shown.
“You’re going to have to be a rock star at device shop work. And I didn’t see any of that,” said Fraley, a former U. S. Army Special Forces soldier. He is a U. S. citizen and Kentucky State Police sniper. “These other people are just watching to cover their tracks. “
An Israeli army official familiar with Hamas’ arsenal said the organization uses a mix of “commercially available” smuggled weapons, adding AK-47s, RPGs and anti-aircraft missiles, as well as a giant collection of locally made weapons, made from readily available materials. civil materials.
For example, the official said, the organization uses towers to make rockets and mortars out of steel, and equips them with explosives made from fertilizers. Other homemade weapons come with a launcher capable of firing 14 rockets simultaneously and the “Zuwari” drone, an explosive. -Laden plane used to attack Israeli towers and destroy cameras on October 7.
“There is a massive army and defense industry in the Gaza Strip,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with army data rules.
The official said most of the smuggled weapons would have been imported through Egypt and would be easy to buy and would not want to be delivered through the country of origin.
One such weapon found in the hands of Hamas fighters is an edition of the Chinese firearms known as the Type 80, a model also copied by the Iranians and renamed the PKM-T80.
Jonathan Ferguson, curator of firearms at England’s Royal Armory Museum, said that from what he just saw in the photographs and videos, the versions of the gun made in China and Iran were so indistinguishable.
Ferguson was also able to identify a rocket-propelled grenade with markings indicating it had been manufactured in Bulgaria. The AP had reported in the past that Hamas had role-playing games with a unique red stripe indicating they were manufactured in North Korea.
Among the more complex weapons produced by Hamas is a copy of a Russian anti-tank rocket called the PG-7VR, designed specifically to defeat reactive armor systems like those used in Israel’s main Merkava Mark VI battle tanks. These tanks are covered with explosive plates that explode outwards to disrupt incoming shells.
In propaganda videos posted in October, masked militants are seen assembling a version of the Russian rocket that Hamas has renamed the Al-Yasin 105, in honor of the group’s founder killed in an Israeli air strike in 2004. While the original Russian version can melt through up to two feet of steel armor, experts say it’s not clear whether the home-brewed explosives in the Hamas knock-off are as potent.
Hamas has posted several videos of fighters firing rockets at Israeli tanks and armored vehicles. These videos are periodically cut off after the warhead explodes, making it possible to independently determine whether the target has been destroyed.
Also, in a tactic borrowed from the battlefields of Ukraine, Hamas appears to have obtained or copied Iranian-designed drones that pack warheads that explode when crashed into their targets. Off- the-shelf, Chinese-made quadcopter drones have also been adapted to drop explosives on tanks and troops.
“The availability of unmanned aerial vehicles, those light-to-the-customer drones, has dramatically replaced warfare in recent years,” Jenzen-Jones said. “We’ve noticed them in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Ukraine and now Gaza. “
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Biesecker reported from Washington. AP Josef Federman contributed from Jerusalem.
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Contact the AP Global Research Team at Investigative@ap. org or https://www. ap. org/tips/
Michael Biesecker, Associated Press