HAMAS BUILDING ARMY IN GAZA

IDF: Hamas Building an Army in Gaza - Joshua Brilliant
The Israeli defense establishment maintains Hamas is building an army in Gaza, partly to fight Israel and partly for a showdown with Fatah. Hamas already has thousands of armed men whose uniforms and conduct demonstrate "elements characteristic of an army," a military source said. The head of the IDF Southern Command, Maj.-Gen. Yoav Gallant, told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Tuesday that Hamas is building battalion and brigade formations. It smuggles into Gaza two to three tons of explosives a month and is engaged in serial production of weapons. Unless checked, Israel could find itself facing a force "in the scale of a division [10,000 soldiers - similar to the size of Hizballah]."

A military source said Palestinians have smuggled large quantities of anti-tank missiles, and over the past year hundreds of thousands of guns, mostly through tunnels. Israel "must not let Hamas and (other) terror organizations build a terrorist infrastructure similar to the one Hizballah built in Lebanon," Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said Tuesday. (UPI)

See also: Hamas Receives Advanced Anti-Tank Missiles (Middle East Newsline)
Israel has determined that the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority has received advanced, Russian-made, AT-14 Kornet anti-tank missiles with a range of 5.5 km. and a high level of accuracy. Officials said the weapons were capable of changing the strategic balance in the region since they could significantly threaten Israeli military operations in Gaza. They said the missiles could also target civilian and military sites inside Israel. "The Palestinians have received dozens of the anti-tank missiles that were used by Hizballah in the Lebanon war," said Shalom Harari, a senior consultant to the Defense Ministry. "These are weapons that break the strategic balance."

See also IDF: Hamas Setting Up Anti-Tank Unit - Ilan Marciano (Ynet News)