June 26, 2026 Categories: Op-Eds
Hamas’ Advanced Weaponry: Rockets, Artillery, Drones, Cyber
Smuggling Routes into Gaza
With Gaza hermetically sealed by Israel and Egypt on land, its underground tunnels blocked, and closed off from the sea, where did Hamas get its rockets, mortars, drones, and explosives? This question is notably missing from most analyses of Hamas’ weapons used in the May 2021 Gaza conflict. In research for this study, a surprising transformation of Hamas’ capabilities became apparent. The terrorist group was no longer a force fighting an asymmetrical war with asymmetrical tactics and weapons. Hamas is now manufacturing a large part of its own weapons, expanding its research, and developing drones and unmanned underwater vehicles, engaging in cyber warfare, and on the cusp of graduating from unguided rockets to precision GPS-guided drones and missiles. It explained why Israel focused on targeting Hamas’ “brain trust” – a score of military engineers and experts in aeronautics and cyberwarfare who were trained in Iran, Malaysia, and the United States and were training a new generation to match Israel’s technological superiority. Some reports attribute the rockets shot by Hamas to its local manufacturing industry, and indeed, the Israel Defense Forces in May sought out and bombed Hamas workshops and stockpiles in Gaza. Clearly, however, the former “cottage industry” of rocket and mortar-making has advanced. “You now have a non-state actor that manages to strike targets in Tel Aviv using means that they produce themselves,” said one respected intelligence analyst. “In terms of a technological military shift, that’s quite something.”1 Admiring writers describe Hamas’ indigenous engineering workarounds. They collect unexploded Israeli ordnance for the explosives contained within, recycle streetlight poles or war detritus from the deserted Israeli communities in Gaza for launch tubes, and make projectile tubes from plumbing pipes. The destruction of several hi-rise buildings in May 2021 left much more wiring, pipes, rebar, cement, and metal available for “recycling.” In 2020, Hamas naval commandos managed to salvage large 170-kilogram naval shells from a British warship that sunk offshore more than 100 years ago during World War I.2 The artillery shells were brought ashore, but the gunpowder was reportedly unusable. In 2019, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar boasted, “There is enough [plumbing pipes] to manufacture rockets for the coming 10 years.”3 As creative as Hamas and the Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ) may be at manufacturing weapons – and aided by Iranian expert guidance – Hamas still depends on smuggling. Some dual-use items are smuggled through established entry points like Rafah, Erez, Karni, and Kerem Shalom, hidden inside innocent-looking goods from Israel or Egypt. Examples include:- Quadcopter drones used for aerial filming, smuggled in as toys
- Diving gear for naval commandos as part of a delivery of clothing
- Tons of ingredients for explosives (ammonium chloride) concealed in a 40-ton shipment of salt4
The Tunnels to the Sea
In June 2018, Israel’s Air Force struck a Hamas tunnel three kilometers south of the Gaza-Israel border. The tunnel entrance was under a Hamas military post, and from there, the tunnel continued dozens of meters to the sea. The “exit” was 2-3 meters underwater, according to the IDF.
For Every Naval Egress, There Is an Ingress
In February 2020, Israel aircraft struck a Hamas shoreline facility. One video of the damage to the site was posted on the internet, and the event left practically no media echo.9 The video showed heavy damage to a reinforced cement structure and young men collecting broken cement slabs and climbing out of what appeared to be a subterranean tunnel. Above the ruins was a wide beachfront promenade. The video’s significance could not be fully appreciated until the exposure of Hamas’ “Metro” tunnel system in the May war. Today, after the 2021 Gaza conflict, evidence suggests that Hamas imported weapons through an underwater tunnel on the Mediterranean coast. The “stevedores” tasked with unloading the submersed arms deliveries were Hamas naval commandos, numbering some 400 divers.10 The underwater “dock” may have even hooked up with the “Metro” tunnel system beneath the promenade so that arms shipments could be directed to the appropriate al Qassam units.
Hamas Rockets, Artillery, and Drones
The Hamas and Islamic Jihad Inventories of Rockets22
Iran is the supermarket for weapons for radical militias and proxies. The rockets in the arsenals of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad may have different names, but many are identical, as seen in these charts produced by arms expert Fabian Hinz for the Wilson Center.23
Compare the charts to Hizbullah’s Iran-supplied arsenal, shown in this chart assembled by the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ “Missile Defense Project.”24
Below is a chart of Houthi rockets and missiles in Yemen. The names, designs, and ranges are similar to other Iranian-supplied or designed weapons.25 For instance, the Borkhan is considered to be in the “Scud missile family.”
Iran’s involvement in the development and growth of Hamas’ missile arsenal has not been missed by rocket experts. For instance, Ian Williams of CSIS’ Missile Defense Project recognized during this war “a larger Iranian footprint” on Hamas’ rocket program.” He elaborated: “We’re seeing this in just the volume that Hamas is able to put up, the intensity of them, the sizes of the salvos, and the coordination of those salvos, which is greater than we’ve seen in the past.”26
Drones
Rockets are not precision weapons and are used by Hamas, Hizbullah, and Houthis as terror weapons. They also generally have a predictable and unmaneuverable flight path – up and down and boom where they fall. Add guidance and maneuverability to that platform and the outcome is a precision missile. But other problems emerge: fuel, launch, thrust, heat, signal reliability and interference, and fuze dependability. Drones solve many of those glitches. Drones are generally known for their utility as spy aircraft for intelligence, battlefield management, and signal relay. However, drones also have an offensive capability. An easier path to a precision-guided bomb, especially for asymmetrical armies, is a suicide drone, also known as loitering munitions. Such a weapon would enable Hamas to accurately hit military bases, defense facilities, power stations, naval targets, force concentrations, and other vital targets. In 2019, a Houthi drone exploded above a Yemeni military parade, killing several officers on the podium.27
Drones can fly low to avoid radar, fly a complex route to a target, and can be used swarm-like with other unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and cruise missiles to overwhelm defenses to hit a strategic target, as seen in the Iranian attack on Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq oil facility. The attack in September 2019 shut down 50 percent of the Saudi oil industry.
Hamas and Iran have made great efforts to perfect a Gaza-launched drone. Drone expert Mohammed al-Zawahri received training in aeronautics and drones in Iran and became Hamas’ chief engineer, where he supervised the al-Qassam Brigades’ Ababil drone manufacturing program. He was assassinated in Tunis in 2016.
Hamas launched six Shehab suicide drones during the 2021 war (a version of the Iranian Ababil and Houthi Qasef drones), each carrying approximately five kg. of explosives. All were intercepted: one by a Python air-to-air missile fired by an F-16 fighter plane and another by an Iron Dome missile (using a radar configured differently than normal). The other interceptions were classified.
By coincidence – perhaps – the Israel Defense Ministry announced a month later a successful test to intercept UAVs with a new airborne laser.29 The laser system will eventually complement the Iron Dome system. Israeli and American aerospace companies will also work together to develop a ground-based laser system.30
Cyber Warfare
An Israeli laser weapon that also shoots down Hamas rockets is a wise addition to Israel’s quiver, considering Hamas’ active cyber efforts to neutralize the Iron Dome system and disrupt IDF communications at high and low frequencies in the May 2021 war. According to a senior Israeli officer, Hamas established “electronic warfare units in order to disrupt the accuracy of the IDF. Hamas wants to infiltrate or disrupt IDF systems on the spectrum, on the web, using GPS jammers and other capabilities.” He continued, “The aim is to lower the level of accuracy of the weapons and to impair connectivity.”34A Hamas Computer Server Farm
There are indications that Hamas was running a cyber “server farm.” Was one of those IDF targets against Hamas the server farm used to process vast amounts of data like radio signals and process information for jamming transmissions? Maintaining a “server farm” of hundreds or thousands of computers entails running them 24/7, using massive amounts of power, and providing a stable cooling environment. Brig.-Gen. (res.) Nati Cohen responded to a question about an IDF attack on a Hamas server farm, a topic that has not been discussed in the public media:This is a dilemma between the intelligence officer who wants to collect information [presumably by hacking the Hamas cyber facility] and the C4I officer who wants to disrupt the capability. There is always tension between collecting and attacking. We exhausted the information, and it was decided that the server farm was producing excess power for Hamas. One of their goals is to produce messages. So the farm became a legitimate target.
