The Hamas terror group’s naval commandos reportedly succeeded in retrieving a trove of ammunition, including large-calibre naval shells, from a sunken British warship off the coast of the Gaza Strip. These ammunitions were retrieved in hope to use them against Israel.
An operation was launched by Hamas terror group to bring the munitions ashore, and then to an underground rocket assembly facility, where they were dismantled by Hamas explosives experts, the report by Israel’s Channel 12 said on Monday. The plan was to use the explosives from the shells to arm the warheads of Hamas-produced rockets and recycle the gunpowder propellant for rocket fuel.
Hamas divers stumbled across the ship at 33 metres depth on the sea floor and over several weeks the Hamas divers removed the ammunition from HMS M15, which was sunk in 1917 during World War I by a German submarine.
Reports say the sunken warship now lies about a kilometre northeast of Gaza City.
Unsurprisingly however, after over 100 years at the bottom of the sea the materials proved to be reportedly unusable.
Israel maintains a naval blockade of the Gaza Strip, which is also supported by Egypt, which is in place to prevent terror groups in the Hamas-controlled territory from smuggling in weapons and explosives. As a result, Hamas has had difficulty obtaining military-grade explosives or rocket fuel materials for their terrorist use against Israel.
According to the report, the group had hoped HMS M15 would provide a windfall. Instead, Hamas will continue to use makeshift and homemade weaponry, such as homemade missiles against Israel and its civilian population.
The ship was involved in the defence of the Suez Canal during World War I. She later shelled Gaza during the Third Battle of Gaza, where she was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine. This battle ended in an allied victory against Ottoman forces, opening the way to the eventual conquest of Palestine and the resulting British Mandate and finally to the establishment of the Jewish State.
The report states that Israel was aware of the ship’s existence off the Gazan coast.
