A battery of Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system. Photo: IDF.

JNS.org – Hamas attempted to confuse Israel’s Iron Dome air-defense batteries during the recent round of fighting between Israel and terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip, a commander in Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades told the organization’s Al Qassam website on Tuesday.

“The rocket fire worked as planned and in a well-timed manner,” he told the site, explaining that simultaneous launches towards multiple Israeli population centers were intended to confound the Iron Dome system.

The commander, known only as “Abu Maaz,” told Al Qassam that the rockets Hamas used in the May round of violence were locally made versions of the Iranian Sejjil medium-range ballistic missiles.

Abu Maaz said that the number of rockets fired during the May clashes was “the highest in the history of the conflict with the occupation [i.e., Israel],” with hundreds of rockets and mortars launched at Israel in a 30-hour period.

He also claimed that Hamas and the rest of the terrorist groups in Gaza, coordinating their launches though a joint operations center, managed to hit “key sites” in Israel.

According to Abu Maaz, 85 rockets were fired at Ashkelon, 80 at Ashdod and 60 at Beersheva, all of which supposedly contained heavy explosive payloads.

According to the Hamas commander, the rocket barrages forced Israel to expedite efforts to reinstate calm and implement “understandings” between Israel and Hamas.

Meanwhile, Hamas’s armed wing has launched a Bitcoin-based crowd funding campaign. Spokesman for Hamas’s armed wing Abu Obeida said that millions of text messages had been sent to “members of the Arab nation and Muslims worldwide,” and that each message included a link through which recipients could donate directly to Hamas.