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Hamas has nearly exhausted its rocket arsenal, IDF estimates

Just a few hundred of the terror group’s 20,000 rockets are left, the IDF believes.

By Avraham Shusteris, World Israel News

The Hamas terror organization has nearly exhausted its arsenal of rockets, with only a few hundred rockets still available, the IDF now believes.

After firing 3,000 rockets at Israel during the first four hours of October 7th, Hamas has fired off 6,000 additional rockets into Israel, bringing the number of successful launches to approximately 9,000.

The Israeli defense establishment estimates that a significant number of launches misfired and landed in Gaza itself.

At the same time, the Israeli military has destroyed most of the remaining rocket stockpile, leaving behind only a few hundred rockets, according to a report in Israel Hayom based on estimates from the IDF.

Since the start of the war, the Israeli military has been working around the clock, both above ground and within the subterranean Gaza tunnels, to find and eliminate both rockets, launching pads and rocket manufacturing sites.

As evidence of the success of their efforts, Hamas has noticeably reduced the frequency of rocket launches into Israel in recent weeks, hoping to preserve and maximize the effect of its rapidly dwindling arsenal.

In order to prevent Hamas from resupplying, the IDF claims that reestablishing control over the Philadelphia corridor in unavoidable. The Philadelphia corridor is a 13-kilometer-wide thin strip of land that straddles the border of Gaza and Egypt through which the Gaza tunnels pass on their way to Egypt.

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It is believed that the Hamas tunnel infrastructure began development after Israel relinquished control of this corridor during Israel’s 2005 disengagement from Gaza.

To prevent the movement of weapons and Hamas personnel between Gaza and Egypt, Israeli would need to destroy the existing tunnels beneath this corridor and ensure that it remains hermetically sealed in the future either through underground barrier, a ravine reaching the water table or other mechanisms.

Egypt has recently denied the existence of any smuggling tunnels and threatened that any attempt by Israel to regain control of the Philadelphia corridor was an infringement of Egypt’s sovereignty and would upend Israel-Egypt relations.