Hamas has an F‑7 rocket launcher from North Korea. Spotted in the recording
After footage appeared showing a fighter from a Palestinian group carrying a rocket launcher, experts are certain - Hamas is using weapons originating from North Korea. The recording shows a Palestinian holding an anti-infantry F-7 rocket.
A film, recorded shortly after the deadly attacks on Israel started last weekend and widely shared on social media, shows several men sitting in the back of a pickup truck. They are threatening a woman lying face down.
The rocket launcher held by one of the aggressors was identified by the blogger War Noir. This internet user, who specializes in military and military issues, argues in a social media post that the Al-Kassam brigades are equipped with, among other things, the F-7 HE-Frag missile produced by North Korea.
Radio Free Asia, which relayed observations from the War Noir account on platform X, commented that there is no one hundred percent certainty, but much indicates that it is indeed a launcher supplied by Pyongyang. This type of weapon was presented in a North Korean weapons catalog, published in May as part of a research project by analysts from the Small Arms Survey organization in Geneva.
Experts claim that Palestinians in the past have already used North Korean weapons. They could have been purchased by Iran or Syria, and then smuggled into the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, bypassing the Israeli-Egyptian embargo in effect since 2005.
Hamas has an F-7 rocket launcher from North Korea. Spotted on the recording
"Syrians often collaborate with Hezbollah, and Hezbollah often collaborates with Hamas. Most of the trade that North Korea conducts through these channels are transactions carried out through the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps," said Bruce E. Bechtol Jr., a former intelligence officer of the United States.
In its recent attacks on Israelis, Hamas uses weapons originating from many countries. Jenzen-Jones, the director of consulting intelligence for Armament Research Services, claims that experts recognize not only North Korean military supplies, but also armament produced in the Soviet Union and in the United States.
Radio Free Asia also reports that in 2009, a North Korean arms transport to Thailand was intercepted. UN experts determined that 38.5 tons of conventional weapons and ammunition were being sent to Iran. However, Israeli intelligence believed that they would ultimately end up with Hamas and the Lebanese Hezbollah.
The fact that Hamas is using North Korean weapons is not surprising - said RFA Bruce Bennett, a defense researcher at RAND Corporation advisory team. - North Korea sells everything it can to earn hard currency. I don't know if North Korea directly provided them to Hamas, or through a third party. But the fact that there is equipment from North Korea there, does not surprise me at all - notes Bennett.
