GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — “The Palestinian militant group Hamas used the chaos of Libya’s civil war to set up an arms-smuggling group that tried to funnel anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles to Gaza,” The Times reported Feb. 8. 

Citing documents it has received, the British daily continued that the group “was given the job of diverting arms intended for Libyan battlefields through Egypt and used middlemen and Hamas militants in Turkey and Qatar to circumvent an Israeli blockade on Gaza.” 

The arms-smuggling group was set up by Marwan al-Ashqar, Hamas’ envoy to Libya who was arrested in 2017 by Libyan authorities and tried two years later on charges of smuggling and possession of weapons for a period of 10 years in prison, the newspaper reported.

According to the judicial records reviewed by The Times, Ashqar admitted receiving orders to purchase weapons for Hamas leaders during a 2011 meeting in Gaza, which was attended by the movement’s leaders, including Hamas’ political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh, and that he obtained a Palestinian diplomatic passport to facilitate the mission.