Israel invites international media to inspect Hamas’ extensive terror equipment

Israel Defense Forces invited international journalists last Thursday to inspect firsthand some of the extensive terror equipment that Hamas operatives used during the massacre of more than 1,000 Israeli civilians on Oct. 7.

During its ongoing military operation inside the Gaza Strip, the IDF has seized a large amount of weapons used by the Hamas terror organization and made a portion of the inventory available for viewing at an IDF military base in central Israel.

The inventory included AK-47 machine guns and thermobaric grenades, as well as the motorcycles and pickup trucks that were used for transporting terrorists into Israel and abducting Israeli hostages back into the Gaza Strip.

Lt.-Col. Idan Sharon-Kettler, deputy commander of the IDF’s enemy equipment collection unit, stressed that the inventory of weaponry proves that Hamas is not a conventional militia that chose to focus on military targets but instead was deliberately and disproportionately focused on slaughtering civilian Israelis, including women, children and elderly.

The IDF discovered “vast amounts of weapons, [and] of explosive materials used not against soldiers, but citizens and families in their own houses,” he said.

Sharon-Kettler also emphasized that Hamas’ vast and sophisticated weaponry invalidates the common narrative that the Gaza Strip is an open-air prison.

“[These weapons] can’t be found in a prison. This is [the result of] organized smuggling into Gaza from many different countries," he said.

"There’s a lot of money that goes into this. Someone is funding and planning for a long time, and we see the result – a massacre of civilians,” the senior IDF official stated without explicitly mentioning Hamas being a terror proxy for the Islamic Iranian ayatollah regime.

The Republic of Iran allegedly provided the Hamas terror organization with UAV attack drones, TNT; RPG-7 dual warhead rockets. The Gaza-based terror group has been using Russian and North Korean military equipment, such as RPG-7 anti-personnel fragmentation rockets, in its fight against Israel.

In late October, Israeli authorities gathered disturbing evidence from a deceased Hamas operative, proving that the terror group likely had plans to use lethal cyanide poison in order to maximize the number of Israeli civilian deaths. The USB key contained instructions for producing a “cyanide dispersion device.”

"This finding points to an intention by Hamas to use chemical weapons as part of its terror attack against civilians," read a classified Israeli report entitled: “Hamas intention of using chemical weapons.”

The classified report was distributed to Israeli embassies worldwide and Jerusalem urged its diplomats to share the intelligence report with relevant officials in the United States and other allied nations.

However, the Oct. 7 massacre also required trained terror operatives.

The Islamic Republic of Iran denies any involvement in the Hamas surprise attack on the Jewish state.

However, The Wall Street Journal reported in late October that the Iranian elite Quds Force had provided training to some 500 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorists merely weeks ahead of the Oct. 7 assault.

Israel’s spokesman for the IDF, Brig.-Gen. Daniel Hagari stressed that Iran has helped, and continues to assist, Hamas in its terror war against the Jewish state.

“Before the war, Iran directly assisted Hamas with money, training and weapons and technological know-how,” Hagari said.

“Even now, Iran is helping Hamas with intelligence,” he added.