Chinese-Made Weapons Found in Gaza Indicates Beijing’s Alleged Role in Supporting Hamas: Expert

An Israeli soldier displays military equipment and ammunition that Hamas and Palestinians used at the time of the attack on the Israeli south border with the Gaza Strip, in Kiryat Malakhi, Israel, on Oct. 20, 2023. (Amir Levy/Getty Images)

A considerable number of weapons recently seized in the Gaza Strip were reportedly found to be made in China, bringing attention to Beijing’s likely involvement in Hamas’s attack against Israel.

The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) claimed to have discovered a large number of Chinese-made weapons in Gaza, which were seized from Hamas soldiers during intensified ground and air operations, reported Israel’s Channel 12 on Dec. 30, 2023.

Israel‘s political leadership has reportedly seen samples of the seized weapons but has not disclosed to the public the specific types or exact quantities.

According to The Defense Post, the Chinese-made weapons were too large to have been transported by cargo ship and must have been brought into Gaza through an organized delivery process rather than through ad hoc smuggling.

Carice Witte, CEO and founder of SIGNAL Group and an expert on Israel-China relations, said it was unlikely that Hamas bought them directly from Beijing but rather through other Middle Eastern countries.

“China has an extensive arms industry,” Ms. Witte told The Jerusalem Post. “Trade relations between China and Middle Eastern nations are well known, even with those sanctioned by the West.”

Ms. Witte believes Israel must verify the issue with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) authorities.

Israel has vowed to eliminate Hamas, which launched a surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing at least 1,200 people and taking some 240 Israeli civilians and soldiers hostage. However, Beijing has never condemned Hamas’s attacks.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry’s statement on Jan. 7, nearly 23,000 people have been killed, and almost 2 million have been displaced amid the war.

Senior Hamas officials have previously admitted that the terrorist group has close ties to the CCP.

Ali Baraka, Hamas’s head of overseas country relations in Lebanon, noted the close ties between Hamas, Russia, and China in an interview with Lebanese media outlet Spot Shot Video.

“Today, Russia contacts us on a daily basis,” he said. “The Chinese sent envoys to Doha [capital of Qatar], and China and Russia met with the leaders of Hamas. A Hamas delegation traveled to Moscow, and soon, a delegation will travel to Beijing.”

Mr. Baraka said Hamas’s supporters include North Korea, Iran, Russia, and communist China.

“All of America’s enemies in the region are consulting and getting closer, and the day may come when they join the way together and turn America into a thing of the past,” he said.

Zhai Jun, the CCP’s special envoy to the Middle East, visited Doha on Oct. 19. China’s state-run media reported that Mr. Zhai held discussions with Qatar’s foreign minister on the Israeli–Palestinian situation but did not mention his meeting with the Hamas leader.

CCP’s Close Ties With Hamas

Yuan Hongbing, an Australian-based jurist and current affairs commentator, believes that the mastermind behind the Oct. 7 attack on Israel had close ties with the CCP.

Hamas and its commander, Mohammed Deif, were among the figures that the CCP’s foreign affairs department had focused on, Mr. Yuan told the Chinese language edition of Vision Times in October.

According to Mr. Yuan’s sources within the communist regime, Hamas’s ability to hold back for two years in preparation for the big surprise attack on Israel is the result of Mr. Deif’s acceptance of the “enduring hardships to retaliate” plan provided by advisers of the CCP’s foreign affairs department.

Iran allegedly provides Hamas with funding, military training, and weapons, which Tehran reportedly receives from the Chinese regime. Thus, the CCP could provide Hamas with rocket technology, Huawei communication equipment technology, and drone remote control technology through Iran, all of which were key factors in Hamas’s ability to quickly increase its combat power, according to Mr. Yuan.

Mr. Deif joined Hamas in 1987, masterminded a number of suicide bombings against Israel, and has been on the Israeli military’s most wanted list since 1995. In 2002, he became the head of the Qassam Brigades, a branch of Hamas.

Reuters reported that sources close to Hamas said the decision to attack Israel was made jointly by Mr. Deif and Gaza’s Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar.

Gaza’s Tunnel Network

Some experts say the CCP could have helped build Gaza’s extensive tunnel network, which is estimated to consist of 1,300 tunnels totaling over 300 miles in length.

Tzu-chia Wu, the chairman of the online news outlet My Formosa, said in a TV program in November that the sophisticated and functional structure of the tunnels in Hamas could not have been achieved solely with its intelligence and technology, suggesting that the CCP must have assisted the terrorist group.

During a media tour organized by the Israeli military on Dec. 15, 2023, an army spokesman shows the entrance of a tunnel that Hamas reportedly used to attack Israel through the Erez border crossing on Oct. 7. (Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images)

Mr. Wu cited three reasons: the CCP has experience in fighting “tunnel wars,” the CCP’s engineering team is the “world’s best” at underground engineering, and many of the exits of Hamas’s tunnels are located in hospitals and children’s playgrounds, which is a reference to the CCP’s experience in “huge-crowd strategy.”

After 1940, the people of the Jizhong Plain began to dig tunnels in their villages to escape the Japanese army. In some places, they even reached the point where all villages were connected underground. The CCP has long propagated that its army and guerrillas used the tunnels to combat the Japanese.

“Huge-crowd strategy” is a tactic used by the former CCP General Lin Biao during the Chinese Civil War, in which unarmed civilians carrying grenades were used to spearhead the battlefield. It is “extremely cruel and shameful,” as described by Liang Su-yung, a high official in Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist government.

Russia

In addition to Hamas, the CCP was also reportedly supporting Russia, another rival of the United States.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the CCP has increased tenfold its exports to Russia of digitally controlled machine tools, which are used for metal milling operations.

According to the Russian customs declaration, Chinese manufacturers exported machine tools worth $68 million in July 2023, while in February 2022, when Russia had just started its invasion of Ukraine, Chinese manufacturers exported only $6.5 million worth of related equipment.

Major Chinese firms responsible for the surge in exports to Russia reportedly have close ties to the CCP’s military. For example, Wuhan Huazhong Numerical Control is a major Chinese defense and security contractor.

The United States sanctioned Wuhan Huazhong Numerical Control between 2008 and 2010 for violating a U.S. law that prohibits the transfer of weapons technology or equipment to Syria, Iran, and North Korea.

In addition, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov revealed in a speech in October that almost all drones currently in use in Russia are of Chinese origin.

“Today, almost all drones come from the People’s Republic of China,” the Russian minister said. “We are grateful to our partners. But we need to develop our own resource base, and the necessary money should be allocated.”

In October, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) described the CCP, Russia, and Hamas supporter Iran as the new “axis of evil.”

“You have to respond to conditions that actually exist that are a threat to the United States,” he said. “It’s an emergency that we step up and deal with this axis of evil—China, Russia, Iran—because it’s an immediate threat to the United States.

“In many ways, the world is more endangered today than it has been in my lifetime.”