The Tel Aviv area could become the newest target for rockets launched from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, Military Intelligence chief Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin said Tuesday morning during a briefing of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
Yadlin said that the IDF had identified at least one test firing in which Hamas had successfully launched a rocket with a 60-kilometer range into the Mediterranean Sea.
He went on to say he was concerned Hamas had smuggled in Fajr-style rockets, an Iranian-produced artillery rocket that was also used by Hizbullah during the Second Lebanon War. It was not clear whether he meant the Fajr 3, which has a maximum listed range of approximately 50 kilometers or the Fajr 5, which can reach upwards of 70 kilometers.
In response to Yadlin's warning, Hamas said on Tuesday that it would neither confirm nor deny reports about the new long-range missile.
Abu Obaidah, spokesman for the armed wing of Hamas, said: "We refuse to comment on such claims. The goal of these claims is to incite against the Palestinian resistance and the Gaza Strip."
Israel, he said, "can say whatever it wants. But in the end it's all speculation and there are many questions hovering over this matter."
"The armed wing of Hamas, Izaddin al-Kassam, has no comment on this report. We neither confirm nor deny it."
Yadlin went on to say that despite the increase in Hamas's capabilities, the recent summer was the quietest in dozens of years for four reasons: Israeli deterrence, aspirations regarding the Obama administration's diplomatic policy, the group's focus on force-building and because of internal struggles that have taken energy from the organizations. Hamas, he continued, did not want any conflict with Israel so that they could direct their energies toward strengthening their civil rule in Gaza, but was still continuing to smuggle weapons in through tunnels across Gaza's southern border with Egypt.
In addition, he said, Hamas had accelerated its attempts to restore and improve both its land forces and its rocket capabilities. According to Yadlin, Hamas was in a better position for rocket capabilities than it was before Operation Cast Lead.
The military intelligence chief also said that Hamas did not yet see itself as having reached its desired military capabilities.
He did however note that all of the 19 rockets fired into Israel during the month of October were fired by splinter groups, and that Hamas was actively trying to prevent rockets from being fired into Israel. Military intelligence indicates that Hamas is taking active steps to discourage rocket fire, even resorting to occasionally shooting members of rocket-launch squad in the knees, said Yadlin.
Hamas, the Military Intelligence chief warned, was not the only of Israel's enemies to be strengthening. He said that Iran was funding, training and smuggling weapons to Syria, Hizbullah and Hamas, and that Iranian weapons were passing through Turkey and Syria - which he described as a "factory and storehouse" for weapons - to the Lebanese guerrilla group.
The intelligence assessment is that Syria is still "very involved" in Lebanon, he said.
Hizbullah, Yadlin continued, was still storing weapons south of the Litani River in violation of UN Resolution 1701. Yadlin noted that Hizbullah was storing most of these weapons in civilian houses which UNIFIL was forbidden from entering. He also added that the Lebanese army occasionally took an enabling role in assisting Hizbullah.
Also discussing Hamas on Tuesday, Minister-Without-Portfolio Bennie Begin said that the Islamist group was "in effect, an extension of Iran" and that Hizbullah was another such extension.
During an Army Radio interview, Begin said that when Israel disengaged from Gaza in 2005, "people assumed that the international community would not hold Israel accountable for what occurred there anymore." After the disengagement, he said, Hamas took over the Gaza Strip and began to fire rockets into Israeli territory.
Begin asserted that "although the cities of the South are no different from Tel Aviv," 60-kilometer missile ranges showed that Hamas was "continually striving" for greater military capabilities.
"As long as there is no comprehensive agreement concerning border crossings, the deterrence we achieved during Operation Cast Lead will grow weaker," he said.
During Operation Cast Lead last winter, Grad-type rockets, Kassam rockets, and mortar shells were fired into Israeli territory, with projectiles hitting Beersheba, some 40 kilometers from the Strip.
Though rocket fire from the Strip has decreased since the three-week offensive, weapons are continually smuggled through tunnels along the Philadelphi Corridor, on Gaza's southern border with Egypt.
Yadlin said that Egypt had improved in its attempts to try to stop smuggling and was making unprecedented efforts in Sinai as well as in Egypt proper, but they were still not succeeding in stopping smuggling entirely.
