GPS kits the size of small rolling suitcases are the key to turning Hezbollah’s arsenal of conventional rockets into guided missiles, Israeli security officials recently warned.
By World Israel News Staff
Israeli military sources recently expressed alarm over Hezbollah’s plan to retrofit conventional rockets with global positioning system (GPS) kits, turning the terror group’s massive collection of around 150,000 projectiles into a deadly arsenal of precision-guided missiles.
Senior Israeli officers spoke about the threat during recent interviews with The Daily Beast, discussing the Iranian-backed Hezbollah threat, which spans Syrian and Lebanese territory.
While Iran has transferred advanced weapons to Hezbollah throughout Syria’s bloody civil war, the IDF has continued to pound Iranian positions near its border, carrying out over 200 strikes in the last two years alone.
Notwithstanding Israel’s attempts to beat back the Islamic Republic and its terror proxies, the Iranian presence still looms in Syria and Lebanon, with the introduction of Hezbollah’s GPS “suitcase” missiles ramping up the threat level.
According to the Daily Beast report, Iran has been forced to stop transporting heavy weapons due to Israeli strikes, with the Jewish state’s air force now focused on cutting off the flow of GPS components, which appear to be the key to Hezbollah’s ability to strike precise targets deep within Israel.
The unnamed officials who spoke to The Daily Beast warned that Hezbollah’s “dumb unguided rockets” are being transformed into “smart precision-guided missiles” with daunting accuracy.
Unlike heavy weaponry, GPS components can even be smuggled into Lebanon via civilian flight routes, a phenomenon Fox News exposed last year.
‘Running after suitcases’
With regard to the specific missiles Hezbollah plans to upgrade first, a report by the British Israel Communication and Research Centre (BICOM) identified a stockpile of around 14,000 long-range Zelzal-2 rockets. Due to the size of the equipment needed to carry out the conversions, the terror group is able to use smaller, nondescript locations as workshops.
To that end, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointed to three underground locations next to Beirut International Airport that he alleged were work spaces for converting rockets into guided missiles, making the accusations at a U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York.
While Hezbollah shuttered the locations quickly, the Israeli official who spoke with The Daily Beast warned, “[It’s] always a cat and mouse game with them — they do a good job of covering their tracks. They can open in another place tomorrow.”
Right now, Israel is “running after suitcases,” the senior officer said.