«Israeli Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz noted that since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, Hamas had used the territory as a staging ground for rocket attacks, launching more than 14,000 rockets and mortar bombs [it is not always possible to tell the two apart]. Since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, the IDF reported in 2014 that terrorists from the strip had fired more than 8,000 rockets into Israel. At the outset of the war in 2014, he estimated that the Hamas had about 10,000 rockets on hand. By the end of July 2014, he reported that some 2,600 had been fired, and another 3,000 had been destroyed by Israeli combat operations. Of the thousands of rockets launched by terrorists at Israel since July 8, by 30 July more than 280 had landed inside the Gaza Strip.
By comparison, in 2002, Israeli papers estimated that the HizbAllah had about 10,000 rockets. In his May 2005 "Resistance and Liberation Day" speech, Sheikh Nasrallah, the HizbAllah's charismatic leader, bragged about possessing "more than 12,000" rockets. A noted Israeli analyst disclosed that on the eve of HizbAllah's 2006 campaign, the HizbAllah had about 14,000 rockets, of which about 10,000 were "short-range" (i.e. with a range of 20 km or less).»
Kol Tuv,
RRW
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