Hamas might have a new weapon in its arsenal: flying robots.
This week the militant group, which is headquartered in Gaza and currently engaged in a conflict with Israel, claimed to have developed three types of drones. On Monday, Israel reportedly shot down one such Hamas drone near the city of Ashdod.
But what kinds of drones do they have and how dangerous are they?
The drone that Hamas boasted about in Tweets and in a YouTube video looks like an Ababil 1, a small Iranian-made drone, according to Aviation expert and blogger David Cenciotti.
It is unclear how Hamas got its hands on the drone in the video, assuming it was in fact controlled by the militant group. Cenciotti and other experts said Hamas could have smuggled the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) from Iran or built it themselves with some components smuggled in from Iran, though they agreed it is unlikely Hamas militants built it by themselves.
Author
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Ben FitzGerald
Adjunct Senior Fellow, Defense Program
Ben FitzGerald is a partner at Lupa, a private investment firm, and an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). At Lupa he leads the firm’s inve...
