Hamas Increasingly Fighting With Israeli-Made Weapons

Hamas has been using Israeli weapons against the Israeli military, finds a new investigation by New York Times. The Sunday piece posed the question, “Where Is Hamas Getting Its Weapons?” and answered: “Increasingly, From Israel.”

Israeli weapons were even used to some extent during the Oct.7 terror raids against communities in southern Israel. “Intelligence gathered during months of fighting revealed that, just as the Israeli authorities misjudged Hamas’s intentions before Oct. 7, they also underestimated its ability to obtain arms,” the report says based on intelligence officials and experts.

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Hamas has been able to routinely recover undetonated Israeli bombs dropped on Gaza and then repurpose them to become an offensive weapon.

“Unexploded ordnance is a main source of explosives for Hamas,” Michael Cardash, former deputy head of the Israeli National Police Bomb Disposal Division, told the publication.

“Hamas has been able to build many of its rockets and anti-tank weaponry out of the thousands of munitions that failed to detonate when Israel lobbed them into Gaza,” the NYT report continues.

Weaponry in arsenals recovered in the Gaza Strip is also believed the result of Hamas stealing weapons from Israeli military bases. On Oct.7, for example, several border bases and outposts were completely overrun by Palestinian militants.

In some instances, weaponry and equipment may have been stolen from Israeli bases in the past by another group, and then appeared on the black market (possibly via Israeli soldiers themselves who committed theft), after which they fell into Hamas’ hands.

The report describes that the ample deployment of Israeli weapons against IDF troops themselves is another example of growing instances of ‘miscalculations’ by Israeli intelligence: 

For years, analysts have pointed to underground smuggling routes to explain how Hamas stayed so heavily armed despite an Israeli military blockade of the Gaza Strip. But recent intelligence has shown the extent to which Hamas has been able to build many of its rockets and anti-tank weaponry out of the thousands of munitions that failed to detonate when Israel lobbed them into Gaza, according to weapons experts and Israeli and Western intelligence officials. Hamas is also arming its fighters with weapons stolen from Israeli military bases.

Israeli authorities have in the recent past expressed increaing alarm over the rampant theft of arms and ammo from Israeli bases. “We are fueling our enemies with our own weapons,” one such review cited in the Times stated.

Meanwhile, recent Israeli media reports have said that about 80% of Gaza’s tunnels remain intact…

“Hamas is in the tunnels. Its leaders and weapons are in the tunnels. The Israeli hostages are in the tunnels. And Hamas’s strategy is founded on its conviction that, for Israel, the critical resource of time will run out in the tunnels.” https://t.co/a7AZdM7yUQ

— Modern War Institute (@WarInstitute) January 28, 2024

There’s also a likelihood that Hamas is increasingly using ambushes and guerilla tactics from out of the tunnels to attack groups of Israeli infantry, and then to take their weapons, as some videos have shown.