Head of the Military Intelligence Directorate, Major-General Amos Yadlin, told the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Tuesday that Hamas has held a successful trial launch of a rocket with a 60 km range.
The rocket, which could reach Tel Aviv from Hamas' stronghold in the Gaza Strip, is apparently Iranian-made.
Hamas has experimented with long-range rockets before, and during Operation Cast Lead fired missiles with a 40 km range which reached Beersheba.
The Goldstone report on the Gaza war says that more than 8,000 rockets have been fired at Israel by Hamas since 2001.
The report says the group's steady firing of rockets at civilian populations is a violation of basic human rights as well as international laws.
Addressing Hezbollah, Yadlin said the Shiite group was continuing to stockpile weapons with the help of Iran, which is smuggling the weapons into Lebanon through Syria and Turkey.
According to the IDF intelligence chief, Hezbollah is storing weapons in civilian homes located south of the Litani River in violation of UN Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.
Yadlin said Iran was also behind the flow of weapons to Sudan, Iraq, Gaza and any place else where a military conflict is raging."
As for Iran's nuclear ambitions, the head of IDF intelligence said the recently-exposed reactor in Qom does not enrich uranium for civilian purposes.
"This plant is used to enrich uranium, and it will have enough advanced centrifuges to shorten the enrichment process," he said.
ynet
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