Terror from the skies: Hamas' murderous paragliders was a nightmare a long time in the making

Last July, a number of drivers suddenly stopped their cars near the beach of the Gaza town of Al Zawayda. The sight that unfolded before them was so unusual that most of them pulled out their phones and began recording what was happening. They found it hard to believe that right in front of them, above the coastline of Gaza, a man was floating, wearing a helmet and harnessed to a bright, wide parachute. Some cheered the unknown paraglider, others looked up at the sky in wonder that was also mixed with justified fear.

Immediately after landing on the coastline, the paraglider declared with great excitement: "Once you have a free Palestine, a free Gaza, you can do exactly the same thing, and that’s the reason why I did this — to show you the way forward if you work for it". The words of the man, who was later revealed to be Sven Kühn von Burgsdorff, the European Union's Ambassador to the Palestinians, contradicted the reality known to almost every child in the Gaza Strip: in Gaza, it is strictly forbidden to paraglider or take off in any motorized vehicle. The IDF, at least that's what the residents of the Gaza Strip believed, enforces this carefully. "He must be a well-connected or very powerful person," immediately thought the observers of the demonstration.

Terrorist paraglider crossing into Israel.

The Israeli condemnation of the well-known paragliding incident was swift and sharp. "Sven Von Burgsdorff's actions serve the propaganda of the terrorist organizations that control Gaza," the Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman stated after the revelation of the unusual incident. There were also those in Gaza who wondered how the European diplomat managed to get the paragliding equipment into Gaza at all. "If anyone from Gaza tries to bring a parachute to Gaza, either through the Egyptian Rafah crossing or through the Erez crossing, it will be immediately confiscated by the authorities," claimed the Gazan journalist Tarek Hajjaj, in an article he published a few days after the exploits of the flying diplomat.

The popular explanation in the Strip was that Van Burgsdorff brought the paragliding equipment into Gaza without Israel's knowledge, probably under the guise of his diplomatic status.

But those who follow what is happening in the Gaza Strip, and certainly after the horrors that befell Israel on Saturday October 7th, know very well that the European diplomat was not the only person who hovered in the sky of the Gaza Strip in the months leading up to the brutal attack carried out by Hamas. There is a significant number of videos filmed by Hamas, videos that were known to Israel and even exposed to the general public as part of the organization's propaganda network, in which its men are seen training enthusiastically and with gruesome precision for the operation to occupy IDF bases and Israeli towns.

In some of the filmed training sessions, which Hamas did not try to hide or disguise at all, its men are seen hovering in the same motorized parachutes that are absolutely prohibited for use in the Gaza Strip. The same parachutes were part of the first deadly wave of raids on bases and towns near the Gaza border, and were clearly seen in several videos taken at the beginning of the deadly event. In Israel, as has already been made clear several times in recent days, they were well aware of Hamas' training and maneuvers, but they interpreted their intentions, as well as the organization's capabilities, in a wrong way that was at odds with the reality on the ground. But what about the motorized paragliders?

According to the Lebanese general Khalil Helou, as quoted last week in the Lebanese newspaper "L'Orient today", the use of motorized paragliders by Hamas was a fact that was known in Israel before the bloody attack. "I read several leaked intelligence reports from the Israeli authorities, that the (Israeli) intelligence saw the training carried out by Hamas militants in paragliders, but they did not really believe that Hamas had the capabilities to carry out such an operation and that the paragliding method would indeed work. Because these are motorized paragliders that have been adapted for military use."

An investigation published by CNN late last week, which also included several videos from the visible training of Hamas in the weeks and months leading up to the attack, also showed the use of motorized paragliders during the training.

The use of the tiny aircraft was not supposed to be foreign to Israel. In 1987, in what would become to be known as the Night of the Gliders, terrorists penetrated Israel's borders from Lebanon with the help of air gliders. One of them managed to land in a field east of Kiryat Shmona, near a military camp. After landing, he massacred six IDF soldiers while shooting and throwing hand grenades at them. Sound familiar?

But you don't have to go back that far to realize the deadly potential inherent in the use of paragliders for sabotage and military purposes. It was only in 2014 that three Hamas operatives who were arrested by Israel during Operation 'Protective Edge' admitted in their investigation that they had planned a murderous infiltration attack using motorized paragliders. God forbid not as an independent activity, but as part of a special unit established by Hamas for this purpose only. Belonging to the prestigious unit also included dedicated training in Malaysia, said Muhammad Kedra, one of the detainees. In another well-publicized case in 2012, an Israeli was arrested who tried to sell motorized paragliders to Iran. Apparently professional parachutes allow prolonged soaring and carrying a lot of weight.

At this stage it is still not entirely clear how the deadly motorized paragliders used by Hamas in its latest attack reached the Gaza Strip. The popular belief is that they, as well as the large amount of equipment accompanying them, entered Gaza through systematic smuggling from the Egyptian side of the border. What is pretty safe to say is that Israel definitely knew about the existence of motorized paragliders in the Strip and about their use by Hamas' special forces.

Another well-known fact is that those gruesome sights of motorized paragliders, on which are mounted cruel Hamas men who are armed from head to toe, landing in the fields bordering the Gaza Strip - will remain with us forever.