Iran Providing Hamas With Smuggle-Ready Rockets, WikiLeaks Cables Show

By Yossi Melman Hagar Mizrahi (Haaretz) April 15, 2011

Iran is manufacturing special missiles for Hamas that can be smuggled through tunnels into the Gaza Strip, according to the report of a conversation between Israel Defense Forces Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Harel and U.S. ambassador to Israel James Cunningham.

A cable on the discussion, which also involved senior officials of the U.S. State Department and Defense Department who came to Israel in February 2009, was sent from the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv on February 19 and is part of the WikiLeaks documents Haaretz is exclusively reporting.

Harel, who has meanwhile retired from the IDF, spoke at the meeting about Katyusha, Grad and Fajr rockets. The Katyusha was originally manufactured in the former Soviet Union, and was developed before World War II. It comes in diameters of 107 millimeters and 122 millimeters, with a range of up to 40 kilometers.

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