New weapon puts Tel Aviv within range of Hamas attacks
Debkafile is reporting that the new addition is a modified Iranian version of the Chinese Silkworm missile. Though originally designed as a ship-to-ship or shore-to-ship missile, the Silkworm design is easily adaptable for precise ground-to-ground assaults. (Note: It is also possible, though less likely, that the missile could be an Iranian C-802 variant called the Noor. A surface-skimming, cruise missile of this type was used by Hezbollah during the Second Lebanon-Israel War in 2006, causing heavy damage to the Israeli corvette INS Hanit.)
Meanwhile, in Lebanon, Iranian proxy Hezbollah has already claimed that it can hit Tel Aviv from north of the Litani River with its Iranian-supplied Zelzal-2 missiles.
‘Hamas has many 60-km range missiles’
(JPost.com) Hamas has likely succeeded in smuggling dozens of long-range Iranian-made missiles, capable of striking Tel Aviv, into the Gaza Strip, a top defense official said on Tuesday after OC Military Intelligence Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin revealed that the terrorist group had test-fired a rocket with a 60-km. range.
Yadlin told the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that the IDF had detected the launch of a rocket with a 60-km. range from the Gaza Strip into the Mediterranean Sea last week.
The missile, officials said, was probably a version of an Iranian-made artillery rocket that is 5 meters long and can carry a 45-kg. warhead. To increase the rocket’s range, they noted, Hamas had the option of shrinking the warhead to 25 or 30 kg., enabling it to strike deeper into Tel Aviv.
In what the IDF said was a coincidence, the Home Front Command is scheduled to test the air sirens in the Tel Aviv area on Wednesday, as part of nationwide tests that began earlier this year. Defense Ministry officials recently met with representatives from the Tel Aviv and Ramat Gan municipalities to discuss the latest developments.
Officials said that the Hamas missile test took place on Thursday, when the rocket was fired into the Mediterranean Sea under cover of darkness and bad weather. Israeli tracking systems detected the launch and tracked the projectile as it flew some 60 km., the farthest Hamas has reached since it began firing rockets in 2001…
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