Hamas Claims to Share Missiles with Arab Countries Willing to Fight Israel

Hamas rockets – Gazan fighters prepare to launch rockets toward Israel.

Bethlehem, 12 Rabi’ul Awwal 1438/12 December 2016 (MINA) – A Hamas official claimed in an interview with Hamas-affiliated channel Al-Aqsa TV on Saturday that the Islamist movement had enough missiles at its disposal to supply to armies of Arab countries should they be willing to fight Israel.

Fathi Hammad was quoted by Ma’an as saying in the interview on Saturday evening that Hamas was “ready to ship missiles manufactured by the movement’s military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, to Arab armies so as to fight the Zionist entity.”

Hammad did not elaborate on where these weapons were being manufactured, nor how the Hamas movement, which rules the heavily blockaded Gaza Strip, was able to obtain the materials necessary for the production of an excess of missiles.

Israeli officials have accused Hamas of “preparing” for another war with Israel and have threatened retaliatory measures against the Gaza Strip as a whole.

However, despite Hamas’ inflammatory rhetoric against Israel, the movement has not officially claimed responsibility for any military action from Gaza against Israel since the 2014 war.

The majority of the nearly two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are sealed inside the coastal enclave due to the continuation of the military blockade imposed by Israel and upheld by Egypt on the southern border.

The destruction from three Israeli offensives over the past six years, including damage to the enclave’s water, sanitation, energy, and medical facilities, coupled with slow reconstruction due to the blockade led the UN in September to warn that Gaza could be “uninhabitable” by 2020. (T/R07/R01)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)