In the last few weeks, the Palestinian Islamist Hamas has succeeded in tricking Israeli military intelligence into believing that the IDF forays behind the lines in Gaza had slowed down their Qassam missile offensive against Israeli towns and villages.
It was a ruse. DEBKAfile’s military sources disclose that stocks of the primitive Qassam missiles are low because Hamas has stopped making them and is now fully engaged in setting up the production of a new generation of missiles upgraded to a range of up to 25 km, armed with 3-kilo warheads - one-and a half times the range of the types in current use and more than double their explosive power - and greater accuracy.
Production lines are also going up in several towns on the West Bank, the territory governed by Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority. According to intelligence sources, the Hamas target is to turn out enough new missiles in 4 to 6 weeks – preferably in time for the US-promoted Middle East conference in Annapolis at the end of November. The shelf-life of these missiles is no more than 6 weeks.
The new missiles bring half a million Israelis within range of Hamas fire – a quarter of a million in the south and a similar number in Israel’s heartland north and south of Greater Tel Aviv. In the South, the new missiles can reach Kiryat Gat and the southern outskirts of the big port-town of Ashdod.
DEBKAfile’s sources emphasize that the Palestinian Authority’s security services are not lifting a finger against the new missile industry mushrooming on the West Bank. In fact, members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an offshoot of Abbas’ Fatah, are shielding it. More...
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