Iran
has supplied military assistance to Hamas in Gaza,
including technology needed to build long-range Fajr-5 rockets used to target
Tel Aviv, a military leader from the Islamic republic said.
"Gaza is under siege, so we cannot help them. The
Fajr-5 missiles have not been shipped from Iran.
Its technology has been transferred and (the missiles are) being produced
quickly," the head of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Gen. Mohammad Ali
Jafari was quoted as saying by the semiofficial ISNA news agency on Wednesday.
Israel
has long accused Iran
of supplying Hamas with its Fajr 5 missile, which has been used to target Tel
Aviv and Jerusalem since the
Israeli Defense Force's (IDF) ongoing military operation in Gaza
was launched one week ago.
Iranian lawmaker Ali Larijani said on Wednesday his country
was “proud” to defend the people of Palestine
and Hamas according to remarks published on the Islamic Republic’s
parliamentary website.
Larijani stressed the assistance had been both “financial
and military." On Tuesday, Larijani lauded the Palestinian missile
capability, saying it had given them a “strategic [source] of power.”
Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Ramadhan Abdallah
Shalah also told Al-Jazeera TV on Tuesday: “the weapons that are fighting
the Israeli aggression and arrogance in Palestine
come mainly from Iran,
as the entire world knows. This is no secret. These are either Iranian weapons
or weapons financed by Iran.”
On Thursday two Fajr rockets struck on the outskirts of Tel
Aviv, marking the first time the metropolitan area had been targeted with
missiles since the Gulf War. Two more Fajr-5 missiles launched towards the city
were intercepted by Israel's
Iron Dome air defense system on Saturday, while another pair of rockets
exploded on the outskirts of Jerusalem.
Two more errant rockets targeting Jerusalem
landed in the West Bank on Tuesday. No casualties have
been reported from any of the strikes.
The Iranian produced Fajr-5 missile has an approximate range
of 75 kilometers, which far exceeds the more mobile Palestinian-made Qassam
rockets which came into use following the outbreak of the Second Intifada in
2001.
The introduction of long-range missiles into Hamas’ arsenal
came as a surprise to the Israeli military, who had initially viewed Tel Aviv
and Jerusalem as out of play in the
run up to Operation Pillar of Defense.
The IDF was forced to revise infographics enumerating the
Hamas rocket threat following the introduction of the Fajr rockets into the
conflict. Israel’s
Iron Dome system has mostly neutralized this Hamas’ newly acquired threat,
however, with the periodic air raid sirens having more of a psychological
impact than a material one.
Iran's
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei was highly critical of other Muslim states
for not standing behind Gaza during
the week-long Israeli military operation that has seen at least 140
Palestinians killed following a thousand-plus IDF airstrikes.
"Some of them sufficed with words, and some others
did not condemn [Israel],"
the official Islamic Republic News Agency cites Khamenei as saying.
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