Hamas has held its first-ever news conference yesterday, threatening to fire homemade rockets at an Israeli coastal city that has been out of reach by Palestinian rocket fire until now.
Four masked Hamas terrorists held the news conference in the Al Noor Mosque in the Jebaliya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, which has been the scene of intense fighting in recent days as Israeli troops try to stop rocket fire on Israeli towns.
Hamas said it’s working to extend the range of its rockets so they can reach Ashkelon, an Israeli city about ten miles north of Gaza.
A Hamas leader told the press conference “the Israeli military operation has failed,” a reference to a campaign to stop the rockets that has left more than 50 Palestinians, mostly gunmen, dead this week.
“We will continue to fire Qassam rockets, and we call on the residents of Ashkelon to leave their homes.”
The press conference ended abruptly when an Israeli drone aircraft was heard overhead – the pilotless planes sometimes fire missiles.
WorldNetDaily first reported in June that Hamas was manufacturing a new kind of rocket in hopes of switching tactics from suicide bombings to firing missiles deep inside Israel after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon completes a withdrawal from Gaza in 2005.
The new rocket, named Nasser 3, is the most powerful and furthest reaching rocket produced yet in the Palestinian territories. The rocket carries a five-kilogram warhead to a range of 9 kilometers and has a standard explosive warhead combined with metal fragments and a standard fuse.
Previously, the Palestinians had been using Qassam 2 rockets, which utilized improvised fuses and warheads that didn’t always explode upon impact. The Nasser 3 is built to guarantee an explosion.
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John Stossel