Hamas Head: We Have a Lot More Rockets Now Than in 2014

Hamas is so well armed, according to top terrorist Yahya Sinwar, that “in five minutes we can fire more missiles at Israel that we did during the entire 51 days of Operation Protective Edge in 2014.” Hamas had enough long-range missiles “to cause the attack sirens to sound in the Tel Aviv area for six months straight.”

Sinwar was speaking to journalists in Gaza, discussing progress on the third-party brokered negotiations between Israel and Hamas. “We are not interested in a military confrontation with the occupying forces, but we are not afraid of one,” he said. “We are well-equipped and the results that will emerge from any confrontation will be very impressive for us. We have informed the occupying forces about our capabilities,” he said.

Negotiations are continuing, but have not reached any conclusions yet. “All the reports until now have been ideas and concepts,” Sinwar said, and that went for both the talks with Israel and the reconciliation agreement with the Palestinian Authority. Regarding the former, Sinwar said that there had been progress on the issue of the ceasefire itself, but not necessarily on the return of Israelis being held by Hamas.

“There may be progress there too, but the two issues are not necessarily connected.” As far as the latter is concerned, Sinwar said that “any attempts by the PA to ‘punish’ Gaza for refusing to cooperate with its agenda will destroy the rules of the game, and will be responded to accordingly.”

Regarding Sinwar’s threats of large-scale rocket attacks, MK Moti Yogev (Jewish Home) said that “Sinwar and his lieutenant Mohammed Deff should have been eliminated a long time ago. We cannot escape our responsibility in Gaza, for both our security and the welfare of Gazans. I hope and believe that the security establishment has not been on summer vacation, but even if it has that it will begin to operate fully on September 2nd.”