How Hamas attacked Israel’s communications towers

GAZA – Hamas fighters

launched coordinated attacks on at least four communications towers

close to the Gaza border in the initial phase of their cross-border assault on Israel – the most sophisticated operation yet to disrupt the infrastructure in the area.

The attacks occurred within a few hours last Saturday morning, alongside strikes on observation towers, according to a New York Times analysis of propaganda videos and satellite images.

Footage posted online last Saturday by the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing, showed a quadcopter drone hovering near a communications tower before it dropped an improvised explosive munition on generators at the base of the tower.

The video also showed heavy smoke billowing from the area in

the apparent aftermath of the attack.

The sun was just rising over the horizon in the video, indicating the tower was struck shortly after Hamas began firing rockets at Israel.

A breach in the border fence is visible in the video, about 305m from the communications tower.

The tower is 4km west of the Be’eri kibbutz, near the northern end of Gaza, where Hamas fighters killed more than 100 Israelis and took others as hostages.

The other three towers – which are spaced between 1.6km and 4.8km apart along Israel’s border with Gaza – are seen with smoke in satellite imagery captured at 11.31am last Saturday, several hours after Hamas’ attack on Israel began. It is unclear whether drones or some other weapon caused the damage.

From satellite imagery, all four of the communications towers look similar. But they could be used for different purposes, said military strategy expert Michael Armstrong, associate professor of operations research at Brock University in Canada.

Some may be for border surveillance, while others could be involved in the transmitting and receiving of data, such as military communications, he said.

The tower in the Qassam Brigades footage might be used for collecting intelligence as well as for facilitating cellular service, according to a former United States defence official who reviewed the video and spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss Israel’s surveillance capabilities.

The former official added that the height of the towers and their proximity to the border indicate that they are used to monitor Gazans.

Prof Armstrong said Hamas most likely targeted these towers to “blind Israeli commanders and prevent communication among their units”.

He added that the munitions used would not need to be complex – they would just need to create shrapnel that could damage infrastructure like antennae, cameras and cables.

The attacks also included multiple strikes on Israeli observation towers used for visual surveillance along the border. The impact of the attacks on the towers’ functionality is not yet known.

In another video shared by the Qassam Brigades, the same improvised munition delivered by a drone near the Be’eri kibbutz was used to blow up a machine gun turret on one of the Israeli Defence Forces’ observation posts along the border.

Hamas has tried low-tech methods of attacking communications towers in the past – in 2018, a tower was targeted with a flaming kite in the Gaza Strip – but Prof Armstrong said the attacks last Saturday were its first successful deployment of armed drones that he had seen. NYTIMES