Hamas is sitting on a stockpile of Western weapons that had previously been shipped to Ukraine. How they reached the Islamic resistance organization is not known.

The Hamas video below shows unequivocally that it has US-made FGM-148 Javelin anti-tank missile launchers, Swedish-made NLAWs and AT4 rocket launchers (Swedish or US-made).

Israel must expect to suffer heavy losses if it sends its ground troops into Gaza. The Israeli general staff has already acknowledged that one of its officers was killed by these weapons, during a reconnaissance mission in Gaza.

Furthermore, Hezbollah deployed them, as a preventative measure, on the Lebanese-Israeli border.

In August 2021, Newsweek revealed that an Il-76 had dropped off a shipment of $100-million worth of Western weapons in Tehran. It was believed at the time that Russia was providing copies of Western weapons to Iran so that its army could replicate them. They may have ended up in the hands of Hamas, but the Pentagon had denied this.

It is more likely that, the Ukrainian army being so corrupt, the weapons could easily have been obtained directly. They can transit through the Black Sea, without any help from Russia or Iran.