Hamas set to gain funding from conflict

GAZA: For years, lack of cash has hobbled Hamas’s Gaza government yet the military capabilities of the Islamist group’s armed wing have expanded and it may rake in donations now that it is meeting Israel on the battlefield.

For seven years, Hamas has struggled to run the impoverished and blockaded Gaza Strip. But funding for the Izz El-Deen al-Qassam Brigades has appeared to remain steady as its arsenal of improvised rockets and other weaponry improved. “It was clear this financial crisis did not affect very much the military wing of Hamas and the group may regain some of its financial power because of the current war,” said Adnan Abu Amer, who teaches at Gaza’s Ummah University.

“The strong fight Hamas’s armed wing is putting up against Israel may pump fresh blood into some of the relations between Hamas and regional powers, especially Iran,” he added.

Relations with Iran soured over Hamas’s refusal in 2011 to back Tehran’s ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in his war against mainly Islamist rebels. As Sunni Muslims, Palestinians have been an anomaly in Iran’s alliances with fellow Shias from the Gulf, through Iraq to Lebanon.

Diplomatic sources have told Reuters the Islamic republic previously used to give Hamas a $250-million annual subsidy. But though disagreements over Syria hit their relationship hard, Tehran continued to provide some cash. At the same time, another element of the Arab Spring upheavals, in Egypt, helped Hamas. The rise to power in Cairo in 2012 of the Muslim Brotherhood — of which Hamas is an offshoot — gave the Palestinian movement a friend on its southern border for a year or so, although the army which overthrew the Egyptian Islamists last year had kept a grip on the smuggling tunnels by which Hamas procured munitions.

That a flow of materials necessary to manufacture explosive, rocket fuel and missile parts has been maintained was proven this month. Hamas and allies have struck deeper than ever before into Israel with new types of home-produced rockets. Hamas sent a drone into Israel and its commandos infiltrated enemy territory by swimming onto beaches and digging tunnels. However, few rockets did much damage, with many shot down by Israel’s air-defence system, the drone was vaporised by a missile and the guerrillas were all promptly killed.