In testimony to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee,
Ashkenazi disclosed Hamas's procurement and deployment of the Kornet, Middle East Newsline reported.
Ashkenazi said the Kornet was believed to have been smuggled into the Gaza
Strip months earlier by the Iranian-sponsored Hizbullah.
"It is a heavy missile and one of the most dangerous in the region,
which was also fired toward the IDF during the Lebanon War," Ashkenazi said.
Hamas has not claimed responsibility for the Dec. 6 Kornet attack, which
did not injure the Israeli Merkava crew. Instead, an Al Qaida-aligned group,
Army of Islam, claimed responsibility.
Officials said the Kornet penetrated the reactive armor of the Merkava.
But the Russian tandem warhead, also fired by Hizbullah in the 2006 war
against Israel, did not explode.
The Israeli military assessed that Hamas received the Kornet as well as
other anti-tank weapons from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps over
the last year. They said Kornet and the Russian-origin RPG-29 were provided
to Hamas in an effort to hamper an Israeli armored invasion of the Gaza
Strip.
"We hold the Hamas as the party responsible in the Gaza Strip,"
Ashkenazi said.
Days after the Dec. 6 attack, the Israel Army accelerated the deployment
of the Trophy active protection system, designed to intercept Kornet as well
as other anti-tank weapons. The first armored unit to receive Trophy,
manufactured by the state-owned Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, was Brigade
401, which operates the Merkava Mk-4.
Officials said Hamas has been helping Palestinian militias in the Gaza
Strip in the operation of anti-tank weapons. They said Hamas has begun
production of Iranian- and Russian-origin missiles, with ranges of up to six
kilometers.
"The reality in Gaza could be fragile and explosive." Ashkenazi said.
The Kornet was described as a laser-guided missile with a range of 5.5
kilometers. Officials said Kornet marked one of the most advanced weapons
obtained by Hamas and its allies in 2010, and would enable Gaza squads to
target MBTs and other armored vehicles inside Israel.
"We have increased our operations in the south on the backdrop of
terrorist attempts to boost their activity," Ashkenazi said.
Military sources said Hamas was using Kornet to bolster deterrence along
the Gaza-Israel border. They said Hamas might be testing Israel's response
ahead of the arrival of senior commanders, including a new chief of staff,
in early 2011.
"Hamas does not want to go for broke," Israeli military analyst Alex
Fischman said. "It is just testing the limits and trying to set new rules of
the game."
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