Top Hamas officials are claiming to have thousands of missiles pointed at Israel and miles of underground tunnels running into the Jewish state, offering these new disclosures amid a wave of renewed violence by the Palestinian terror group.
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar threatened to use many of the missiles the group has stockpiled to destroy the city of Tel Aviv in a recent speech broadcast on Hamas-run television and translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute.
“We now have hundreds of kilometers of underground tunnels,” Sinwar was quoted as saying in his Nov. 4 remarks. “We have many hundreds of control-and-command rooms, both underground and above ground.”
Israel was deluged Monday evening by at least 150 rockets fired from terror outposts. A number of those rockets struck areas populated by Israeli citizens, prompting schools to shutter for the first time since the early 1990s. The major escalation hit after the Israeli Defense Forces assassinated a top Palestinian terror leader.
Sinwar claimed in his remarks that the group, which is partially supported by Iran, has the ability to launch surprise attacks on Israel from underground.
“We have hundreds and thousands of traps, and if the enemy so much as thinks to enter the Gaza Strip, our sons will go out…. You and your brothers will emerge from the belly of the earth…. The earth will spew forth our men and our youth, who will go out to [the enemy’s] tanks from the belly of the earth with anti-tank missiles that were manufactured in the Gaza Strip,” MEMRI quoted the Hamas leader as saying.
The group’s cache of arms has grown substantially over the years, according to Sinwar.
“In 2014 we had dozens of—perhaps only a few hundred—high-quality anti-tank missiles,” the terror leader said. “Today, by the grace of Allah and the efforts of the youth of Gaza, we possess thousands of these missiles.”
“Today, by the grace of Allah, we have many thousands of missiles that will turn the occupation’s cities into ruins and ghost cities—Allah willing—if the enemy makes any stupid mistake against Gaza or against one of our great national causes,” Sinwar added.