Israeli military and intelligence officials have concluded that a significant number of weapons used by Hamas in the Oct. 7 attacks and in the war in Gaza came from an unlikely source: the Israeli military itself.

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.

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.

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  • foggy@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    “pick up the gun.”

    “I don’t want no trouble mister…”

    “Pick… Up… The gun.”

    Carefully picks up gun

    Bang!

    “You all saw him. He had a gun.”

    • Andy@slrpnk.net
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      5 months ago

      Yeah. My first thought was ‘Surely this means the US will stop arming the IDF. After all, they defunded the UN Palestinian refugee agency that supplies all food in the territory last week over allegations that five people among their thousands of staff engaged in terrorism. No choice but to cut off the IDF too, zero tolerance policy and all.’ /s

      This whole thing is a terrible disaster.

      • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
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        5 months ago

        Three months ago I commented a dozen times this was the concluding chapter of a 70-year genocide/colonization, whatever you want to call it.

        My stance is about the same.

        • maynarkh@feddit.nl
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          5 months ago

          the concluding chapter

          The latest chapter at least. Even if Israel kills or displaces everyone in Palestine, the conflict will go on, with renewed vigour from the renewed grievances.

          • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
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            5 months ago

            You think if literally everyone in palestine is dead, there will still be a war? A war of renewed vigor?

            • Evilcoleslaw@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              Displaced as well. Many would be displaced into Jordan and Egypt and it will further inflame and destabilize the populations there. Just instead of Gaza and the West Bank it’ll be more like the situation on the border with Lebanon.

            • maynarkh@feddit.nl
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              5 months ago

              War with Hezbollah bolstered with Palestinians refugees with dead families and nothing to lose for example.

            • Maalus@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              You can’t “just kill everyone”, that’s not how it works. You are essentially trying to kill an idea. No matter what you do, no matter the opression, Palestine won’t stop to exist. Look at Poland as an example - wiped off the map for 123 years. Then it came back when an opportunity struck. Three occupiers, two of them with very harsh opression, yet it came back like a russian nesting doll.

            • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              There’s about150 million Arabs next to israel. Killing 2 million of the poorest in Gaza isn’t going to magically solve their problems.

      • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
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        5 months ago

        This war is four years older than my parents and I think it will outlive my children. When combatants think an eternal god is on their side there’s no way to end it.

        • Hegar@kbin.social
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          5 months ago

          I hate religion as much as any sane person but war is about killing people and taking their stuff.

          If there wasn’t power, the cheap labour of others and natural resources at stake, the war would be over regardless of what angry sky man thinks on the matter.

        • tsonfeir@lemm.ee
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          5 months ago

          Be careful, I think there’s a bot that looks for the words both and sides together and bans you in here.

  • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    The Taliban started off with a few AK’s and ended fully equipped with M16’s and all the tacticool gear America has to offer.

  • SpicyLizards@reddthat.com
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    5 months ago

    Is it unlikely? Sounds like some yahoo was looking for a thinly veiled reason to genocide and claim some land.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    5 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    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.

    By either count, years of sporadic bombing and the recent bombardment of Gaza have littered the area with thousands of tons of unexploded ordnance just waiting to be reused.

    But other weapons, like anti-tank explosives, RPG warheads, thermobaric grenades and improvised devices were repurposed Israeli arms, according to Hamas videos and remnants uncovered by Israel.

    Qassam’s media arm has released videos in recent years showing exactly what they were doing: sawing into warheads, scooping out explosive material — usually a powder — and melting it down to reuse.

    In 2019, Qassam commandos discovered hundreds of munitions on two World War I-era British military vessels that had sunk off the coast of Gaza a century earlier.

    “The most essential way for Hamas to obtain weaponry is through domestic manufacture,” said Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a Middle East policy analyst who grew up in Gaza.


    The original article contains 1,489 words, the summary contains 168 words. Saved 89%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!