FPI / April 11, 2024
Geostrategy-Direct
When Israel went into Gaza following the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) “found Chinese military equipment in Hamas warehouses, including large numbers of assault rifles (QBZ assault rifles) and grenade launchers (QLZ87 automatic grenade launchers), telescopic sights for rifles and cartridges for M16s, high-end communications equipment, listening devices, tactical military radios and sophisticated explosives,” U.S. researcher Guermantes Lailari said in a report for the Jewish Policy Center.
For decades, China has been known to host and train Hamas operatives who go on to become key leaders in the terrorist organization. What Israel found in Gaza starting in October only solidified that assertion.
“Every country looks for rising young people in the areas it seeks to influence. China has been doing this among the Palestinians for decades,” independent journalist Steve Rodan noted in an April 6 Substack.com analysis.
“And Beijing has succeeded in grooming the Palestinians who today are at the top of the heap — particularly in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.”
Titled “China's Support of Hamas: Evidence and Actions," Lailari states that Beijing groomed Palestinians who became the founders and leaders of Hamas. The report cites Mohammed Deif, sent to China in 1996 to study artillery and rocketry.
"During his time there, he [Deif] married two Chinese Muslim women from Sarta or Dongxiang ethnicity in Gansu [China] and brought them to Gaza in 2000 after he completed his studies," the report said. "Reports indicate that one of the Chinese wives opened a channel to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership to maintain CCP and Hamas communications.”
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Another Hamas leader trained by China was Ismail Haniyeh, for decades the so-called prime minister of the Gaza Strip. Haniyeh was said to have studied at Beijing's Renmin University and "perhaps, received training on other security topics," the report said.
Lailari, a former U.S. Air Force officer now based in Taiwan, added:
"What private or secret training did the PLA provide Hamas and other terror groups in Gaza? Intelligence gathered while the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] is mapping and destroying the Hamas tunnel network provides some clues."
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