Israel is seeking answers on how Hamas came into possession of advanced weapons manufactured in China, according to a new investigative report.
The Israeli Defense Forces said they found caches of made-in-China materiel, including equipment such as cartridges and rifle sights for M16 assault rifles, automatic grenade launchers, and communications devices, Britain's Telegraph newspaper said on Friday.
Now entering its fourth month, this new phase in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict began after Hamas fighters raided Israeli communities in a kidnapping, rape and murder spree that left 1,139 dead. Nearly 23,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip and more than 58,000 wounded by Israeli air strikes, according to the Hamas-run health authorities there.
The Telegraph cited an Israeli intelligence source as saying the stockpile of Chinese weapons came as a surprise and raised an important question: "Did it come directly from China to Hamas or not?"
The source said that the equipment was on a scale and level of sophistication that Hamas did not previously have access to.
"The question, of course, is, did the Chinese know it was going to Hamas, or did it come through a third party like Iran?" University of Bath defense expert and former NATO analyst Patrick Bury told the paper.
Bury questioned how "modern professional infantry kits" such as grenade launchers made it into the hands of the pro-Palestinian militant group. Iran, he said, likely provided training and funding to the organization and played "at least some role" in the equipment transfer.
In November, Israel reported Hamas' use of unspecified new weapons in the latest armed clashes, though the IDF did not disclose details when reached for comment.
Newsweek was unable to verify details cited in the report and did not receive a response to separate written requests to the Chinese and Iranian foreign ministries, as well as the Israeli Defense Ministry.
"This is, I think, an Occam's razor situation where the motive is questionable if you think of China exporting its weapons directly to terrorists. It doesn't make a lot of sense if you look at Chinese behavior around the world," Tuvia Gering, a researcher at the Tel Aviv University-affiliated Institute for National Security Studies.
However, Chinese firms do have a history of ending up in the hands of Islamist groups, such as Lebanon-based Hezbollah, Gering pointed out. The Shiite militant group, also backed by Iran, fired a China-made anti-ship missile at an Israeli corvette during the 2006 Lebanon War, killing four sailors.
If the weapons are confirmed to be Chinese, and they came by way of a third country like Iran, "it is a bad look for China" in Israel, Gering said. He said China's popularity in the Jewish state fell further after the Chinese navy failed to respond to the distress call of an Israeli tanker attacked by Somali pirates in late November.
Last month, a military blogger made waves on the Chinese microblogging site Weibo by suggesting the Iran-backed Houthis—the militant group in Yemen that opened a new front in the Israel-Hamas war by attacking commercial vessels in the Red Sea—were using anti-ship missiles adapted from Chinese technology.
After years of warming ties, Israel's relationship with the world's second-largest economy took a hit after the former launched its counteroffensive in Hamas-ruled Gaza. China, which remains one of Israel's largest trading partners, has yet to condemn Hamas outright for the brutal attacks on October 7.
Further driving a wedge between the two countries, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi later said that Israel's response in Gaza had gone "beyond the scope of self-defense," and Beijing's Middle East envoy snubbed Israel during his tour of the region.
In addition, antisemitic rhetoric and Iranian propaganda have flourished on Chinese social media apps in the wake of Israel's bombing campaign, apparently aided by Beijing's censors, which scrub comments left in support of Israel.
Some China observers have said the country is using the conflict to erode Washington's influence in the Middle East and position itself as a champion of the developing world.
Update 1/9/24, 10:30 p.m. ET: This story was updated with comments by Tuvia Gering.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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Micah McCartney is a reporter for Newsweek based in Taipei, Taiwan. He covers U.S.-China relations, East Asian and Southeast Asian ... Read more
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