Hamas: We fired American weapons at Israel

JERUSALEM – Hamas and other Palestinian terror organizations in the Gaza Strip utilized American and international weaponry to attack the Jewish state yesterday, top terror leaders claimed to WND.

The weapons were seized in June when Hamas took control of Gaza and overran U.S.-backed security compounds of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah organization, the terror leaders said.

"The American weapons and Western weapons that reached Fatah before Hamas took over Gaza [are] being used by the Palestinian resistance, including in our aerial attack yesterday," Muhammad Abdel-El, spokesperson and a senior of the Hamas-allied Popular Resistance Committees terror organization, told WND.

"Yesterday was not the first time we used these American weapons against the [Israeli] occupation. The resistance will keep using all weapons at our disposal for the liberation of Palestine," Abdel-El said.

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Abdel-El's Committees and members of Hamas' so-called resistance department, said they used heavy machine guns they obtained from Fatah compounds in June to fire yesterday at an Israeli Defense Forces helicopter that ventured into the central Gaza Strip near the territory's Nuseirat refugee camp.

A spokesperson for the IDF said the military was unaware of any unusual incident involving a helicopter yesterday.

The Committees, an umbrella group consisting of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian organizations, has taken responsibility for thousands of shootings, rocket firings and other terror attacks. It is accused of bombing a U.S. convoy in Gaza in 2003.

Abu Abdullah, a member of Hamas' "military wing," claimed Hamas indeed attacked an IDF helicopter yesterday morning and said the attack was carried out by a new Hamas naval force set up in Gaza in part using foreign weapons

According to a Hamas announcement last week, the terror group's new naval unit consists of 150 fighters and was established to "protect the shores of Gaza."

The U.S. in recent years reportedly transferred large quantities of weaponry to build up Fatah forces in the Gaza Strip and West Bank against rival Hamas. Hamas officials told WND in multiple interviews they would seize the American weapons.

Last June, Hamas took complete control of the Gaza Strip, overtaking all U.S.-backed Fatah security compounds in the territory. Abu Abdullah, a senior member of Hamas' so-called military wing, told WND Hamas estimates they obtained at least $400 million worth of American weapons and equipment seized in Gaza. That number couldn't be verified. Hamas provided WND with a list of munitions it said it seized in Gaza.

Besides obtaining American weapons upon taking over Gaza in June, WND broke the story that terrorist groups, including Hamas and the Popular Resistance Committees, claim they seized large quantities of CIA security files stored at major Fatah compounds.

Terror leaders claimed the files contain, among other information, details of CIA networks in the Middle East.

Terror leader: We'll obtain more U.S. weaponry

Meanwhile, the U.S. has pledged more aid to bolster Abbas in the West Bank. The State Department recently announced a multimillion dollar program to train Fatah militants. Under an agreement signed last month by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayad, Fatah's Force 17 officers are slated to take course work and conduct VIP protection exercises under the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security. Force 17 serve as de facto police units in the West Bank. Many members of Force 17 openly serve in the Brigades.

According to Palestinian and Israeli security sources, the U.S. is also slated to send weapons to Fatah in the West Bank.

The Committees Abdel-El yesterday vowed to obtain American weaponry shipped to Abbas in the West Bank:

"America and Israel can keep financing and supplying Fatah's militias, but at the end of the day all available resistance movements, including large numbers in Fatah, will do everything so these weapons will reach the good hands of those who fight for Islam, Allah and the liberation of Palestine, and not those who are only carrying out an American and Zionist policy such as the Fayyad-Abbas government."

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