Hamas inaugurates arms exhibition for homemade military equipment

Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas, on Friday inaugurated an arms exhibition for its homemade military equipment at Jabalia refugee camp, north of the Gaza Strip.

This exhibition, which was inaugurated by a number of Hamas and Al-Qassam leaders, marked Hamas’s 35th anniversary.

At the exhibition, Al-Qassam shows the stages of the development of its military equipment, such as S50 and M75 rockets and Shehab and Ababeel drones. All of them were used when the Palestinian resistance faced off against Israeli offensives in Gaza in 2014 and 2021.

Hamas official, Mohammad Abu Askar, expressed: “All that you see is produced by Al-Qassam fighters. It took years to reach this stage. Al-Qassam fighters paid souls and blood for it.”

Abu Askar, who spoke to Anadolu Agency, added: “The accumulation of power is part of the preparations for potential battles with the Israeli occupation, which has been in place in the Gaza Strip under a strict sea, air, and ground siege for over 16 years.”

The official also noted: “The Palestinian resistance must be ready to defend the Palestinians everywhere in the event of harsh Israeli aggression on them and on their holy sites.”

Hamas was announced as an Islamic resistance movement on 14 December 1987, just days after the eruption of the first Palestinian Intifada on 8 December 1987, when an Israeli settler ran over a number of Palestinian workers east of Gaza, killing six of them.

Its main founder and spiritual leader are Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, a quadriplegic refugee. He spent more than two decades inside Israeli jails.

Sheikh Yassin was assassinated in an operation supervised directly by late Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in March 2004.