In a development that is the first of its kind since the beginning of the Israeli war on Gaza, the Al-Qassam Brigades – the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) – revealed the use of a Chinese guided missile called the “Red Arrow” to target an Israeli military vehicle.
On Monday, the Al-Qassam Brigades broadcast scenes of an OFK engineering vehicle being targeted with a “Red Arrow” guided missile, west of the Tal Zorob area in the city of Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip.
The Red Arrow is a second-generation anti-tank missile, and it is a category of missiles that are controlled by a wire-optical method.
The Red Arrow missile consists of an anti-armor projectile, consisting of a warhead, a solid-fuel propellant missile, and a control unit connected to the launch platform via a wire, in order to guide it to the target visually.
It has a high ability to hit targets from distances ranging between 3 and 4 kilometers, and is considered one of the most important missile systems that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army has relied on since the late 1980s.
The missile was manufactured in 1980, and was used in the Bosnia and Herzegovina War and in the battles that followed the Syrian revolution. It weighs 25 kilograms. The missile is launched from the ground and can also be launched via combat vehicles or attack helicopters.
In a previous report published by Sputnik in 2021, the Chinese military industry produced several types of third-generation portable anti-tank missile systems, including missiles similar to their American counterpart, the FGM-148 Javelin.
Add quality
According to military expert Colonel Hatem Al-Falahi, the “Red Arrow” missile – which the resistance said had recently entered service – represents a qualitative addition, because it helps to hit vehicles and armored vehicles from a distance of up to 4 kilometers.
Al-Falahi added – in an analysis of the military scene in the Gaza Strip – that this type of missile has a high ability to hit vehicles and armor.
Al-Falahi believed that the discovery of this missile is an indication that the resistance possesses more weapons capable of striking armored vehicles, saying that the timing reflects the resistance’s strategy to strike military units from long distances.
Al-Falahi said that today’s operation confirms that the reality is completely different from what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says and refutes the talk of the occupation army leaders about the imminent declaration of victory over the Qassam Brigades.