Iranian Minister of Cultural Heritage and Tourism and retired IRGC General Ezzatollah Zarghami said on a November 20, 2023 show on IRIB Ofogh TV (Iran) that Iran has supplied Hamas with Fajr-3 rockets. He said that Iran helps both Shiite Hizbullah and Sunni Hamas. Zarghami claimed to have traveled to the region to deliver the rockets and provide instructions on operating them. He claimed to have been inside the Hamas tunnels.
Ezzatollah Zarghami: “Fajr-3, which is a 240 mm rocket, was one of our products. Later, we made its warhead smaller and it had a range of 70 km. My first mission was to take this rocket… I say this with the utmost pride and with no fear of anyone. The Leader has already said that we were helping [Hamas]. We support the oppressed everywhere – Shiite Hizbullah as well as Sunni Hamas. These are what [Khamenei] has declared in the past.”
Interviewer: “Yes.”
Zarghami: “I traveled to the region as the production manager of those rockets, and I supplied them both to Hizbullah and the Palestinians. For some time, I was inside the very same tunnels that they are fighting from.”
Interviewer: “Wow.”
Zarghami: “Six or seven years ago, I posted about this and got the nickname ‘yellow canary.’ In the tunnels, I provided training about the usage and specification of the rockets. These training courses were highly successful. I saw that they had cages of singing canaries in the tunnels.
“I praised their commander about their acumen to have music during military work. The commander replied that the birds are not meant for singing, they are meant to be [oxygen] sensors in case the airflow is disrupted. If the airflow becomes weaker, the birds stop singing and drop dead. When the bird dies, we realize that there is a problem with airflow.”