Iran is selling a new drone on the international market that it’s calling “Gaza.”
Iran unveiled the drone at an arms expo in Doha earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported. The “Gaza” drone can carry up to 13 bombs and travel more than 1,200 miles at 35,000 feet, according to the report.
While Iran has long developed weapons and shipped them to its allies and proxies around the world, it is now able to sell those weapons on the open market after UN sanctions that barred the country from importing or exporting ballistic missiles and armed drones expired last year.
Those sanctions were part of the so-called “Iran deal” that was championed by former US President Barack Obama and ultimately signed by Iran and the permanent members of the UN Security Council in 2015. As part of that deal, Iran agreed to restrict its nuclear program. Former President Donald Trump, however, withdrew from the deal in 2018.
Iranian weapons sales around the world have proliferated since the expiration of the UN restrictions. And Iranian drones have featured prominently in recent conflicts, including in Ukraine.
Perhaps Iran’s most famous drone, which is not technically even a drone, is the Shahed-136. It’s actually a loitering munition powered by a propellor. It hovers over a target before crashing into it and exploding, which means they only go one way.
Iran recently developed a newer version of this kind of “exploding drone,” known as the Shahed-238. It’s thought to be faster. These Iranian drones in the hands of the Russians have wreaked havoc in Ukraine. In November, Ukraine’s foreign affairs ministry said that the country shot down 71 Iranian-made Shahed drones that were headed for Kyiv from Russia.
Iran’s latest drone is named in solidarity with the residents of Gaza, who have been under fire since Hamas launched attacks inside Israel in October. If it performs as it’s being marketed, it would be a major step up from the Shahed series.
But not everyone is convinced that the “Gaza” drone is all that Iran says it is.
A spokesperson for General Atomics, which makes the MQ-9A Reaper in the United States, told The Wall Street Journal that the “Gaza” drone could carry less than one-third of the Reaper’s payload.
“Knockoff versions…are plentiful these days,” he said. “Often imitated, but never replicated. Don’t be fooled by look-alikes.”
