Al-Qassam snipers shoot their Al-Ghoul sniper rifles at a shooting range, as part of a promotional video for the Palestinian resistance-made rifles. Photo: Al-Qassam Brigades/Military Media.
By Yousef Fares – Aug 30, 2024
When sniper rifles first appeared in the military parades of resistance factions in the Gaza Strip in the years preceding Al-Aqsa Flood, the enemy did not suspect that these weapons, nearly two meters long, would make such a significant difference in the field during a war of this scale. However, yesterday, the Israel Hayom newspaper acknowledged on its front page that snipers from Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements now pose the greatest threat to Israeli forces operating inside the Strip.
Since the beginning of the Second Intifada, sniper weapons were limited to individual fighters who proved their prowess in sniping. It is likely that Islamic Jihad’s Al-Quds Brigades and Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades had only a small handful of soldiers with this unique talent and who were capable of executing sniping operations with available Russian weapons, such as the Dragunov rifle that entered into service in 1967, or US-made NATO rifles. It is worth noting that neither these rifles nor their ammunition were abundantly available. One resistance fighter recalls that a single sniper rifle would be circulated among several factions in a single month, and the price of a single bullet sometimes reached $70. This logistical scarcity significantly limited the development of the resistance’s human expertise in sniping operations. Thus, until 2008, sniping operations were entrusted to those uniquely talented fighters who excelled in using a sniper rifle. These rifles had an effective range of less than one kilometer, and a bullet caliber of 7.62 mm.
The turning point that transformed individual sniping missions into a broad combat specialization, for which military academies were established and fighters underwent lengthy military tests to select those suitable for the work, was the arrival of the Austrian Steyr HS .50 rifle piece that entered service in 2004. The United States imposed a sales ban on it in the international arms market to prevent a copy from reaching the Islamic Republic of Iran. However, according to a resistance source, Iran obtained a piece of it one year after its release, reverse-engineered it, developed it, then began mass producing it under the name Shaher. Soon afterwards, it reached Gaza in the summer of 2008. While the Austrian weapon fired 12.7 mm bullets with a lethal range of up to 1500 meters, the Iranian Shaher was developed to fire 14.5 mm bullets with a lethal range of up to 4000 meters. The locally produced Qassam version, named Al-Ghoul, fires 14.5 mm caliber bullets with an effective and lethal range of up to 2000 meters.
The important thing about all of this is that sniper weapons are no longer rare, nor is their ammunition scarce. Rather, they have become available to all resistance factions, and it has become possible to develop a large cadre of specialized fighters who excels in using the best sniper weapons in the world. The Al-Ghoul rifle is especially suitable for the Strip’s environment and these rifles, which the Palestinians have made with their own hands, are used with high proficiency. This human abundance in snipers and material abundance of weapons appeared during Al-Aqsa Flood like never before. The resistance has carried out at least one sniping operation every week, for the past 44 weeks of war. In fact, the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation was carried out with snipers who used precise shots to disable all the surveillance cameras and electronic machine guns along the separation fence within minutes.
Perhaps what most worries the Zionist enemy army about the sniper threat is that the occupation cannot hope to deplete the resistance in a war of attrition. The ammunition is locally manufactured and the snipers who graduated from military academies and trained extensively over the past ten years are always ready. A sniping operation needs nothing more than a skilled shooter, a rifle, and a bullet. As for the range, Al-Ghoul can inflict wounds at a distance of 4km which is the depth of the Netzarim axis, from the Zeitoun neighborhood to the newly established barrier. This means that the occupation soldiers, whom the Zionist political leadership has decided to keep in Gaza, will be sitting ducks on a shooting range with inexhaustible ammunition and tireless snipers.
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/DZ/SC
