WASHINGTON — The United States has concluded that Hamas has
significantly increased the range of its missiles.
A U.S. congressional committee was told that Hamas's Kassam-class
missile could strike targets beyond the Israeli city of Ashkelon, about 10
kilometers from the Gaza Strip, Middle East Newsline reported.
"Indeed, two months ago, Hamas shot a rocket into the Negev with
considerably farther range than before, meaning they already have a proven
range north of Ashkelon," David Wurmser, a former senior aide of Vice
President Richard Cheney, told the House Foreign Relations Committee on Dec.
5.
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Wurmser, who specializes in Middle East affairs, said Hamas has targeted
Israeli residential areas as well as strategic sites. He said the Hamas
regime in the Gaza Strip has already "turned one Israeli city, Sderot, into
a ghost town."
"Hamas now boasts that it has missiles that reach much further [than
Sderot]," Wurmser said.
Wurmser said the Hamas regime has turned the Gaza Strip into what he
termed a terrorist mini-state. He said the regime would threaten the center
of Israel, including Tel Aviv.
"That mini-state is building an army reminiscent of Hizbullah's in
Lebanon, but this time buried in tunnels under, and hiding behind, well over
a million civilians concentrated in only a couple of hundred square miles,"
Wurmser said. "Israeli units fighting along that front recently have
commented that they are encountering not a guerilla force, but a real army."
