Spanish ammunition found by Israeli soldiers in the possession of Hezbollah terrorists

Israel's counter-offensive against attacks launched by Hezbollah terrorists has given rise to some very striking images.

Israeli military equipment that could be affected by a French embargo
Photos of an Israeli captain showing the Merkava MkIV in action against Hamas

On Tuesday, Captain Roni Kaplan, a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, showed images of ammunition boxes with text in Spanish found in the possession of Hezbollah, weapons that the Israel Defense Forces confiscated on October 15.

What we see are ammunition boxes with two shells for 105 mm M-40 recoilless guns. It is usually known as CSR 106 because at the time, to prevent gunners from using 105 mm howitzer ammunition in this type of gun, it was decided to indicate its caliber as 106. These ammunition would be hollow charge (hence the acronym CH) of the M-344 A1 type, fitted with an M-509 fuse.

Yesterday, Israel War Room posted this photo showing the ammunition boxes in higher resolution, stating that these ammunition were found by the IDF’s 228th Brigade in a residential building in southern Lebanon. The boxes indicate that they are from FNG Lot 72, which would be the acronym for the National Factory of Granada, one of the weapons production centers of the National Company Santa Barbara. The number 85 would indicate the year of manufacture: 1985.

On October 10, Israeli Twitter user @loxlikelox posted a photo of an M-40 CSR captured by the Israelis in southern Lebanon. These guns were popular in the 1970s and 1980s. They could be mounted on tripods in fixed positions or on a mount on an off-road vehicle. Here we can see an image that I already showed you in 2020 of a Land Rover 88 of the Spanish Marines with a CSR 106:

These types of cannons had many users and still do. One of the conflicts in which they were used was the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988). In fact, this is not the first time that Israel has encountered this type of Spanish ammunition. In 2009, the Israeli Navy intercepted a German ship, the MV Francop, sailing in the Mediterranean Sea under the flag of Antigua and Barbuda. The ship was carrying hundreds of tons of weapons and ammunition from Iran destined for Hezbollah. On November 4, 2009, the Israel Defense Forces published this video of the weapons seized from that ship:

On November 3, 2009, Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs published these photos of the ammunition seized aboard the German ship:

As you can see, the text on these ammunition boxes is the same as that on the boxes found in Lebanon. It is even the same batch 72 of this type of ammunition for CSR 106.

Everything indicates that these could be munitions sold by Spain to Iran during the war between that country and Iraq (at that time in Spain the PSOE was in government, as it is now, but with Felipe González as president). It is alarming to see that these munitions have ended up in the hands of a terrorist regime like Iran and in the hands of a terrorist organization like Hezbollah. Today these munitions would be expired, but it is possible that they are still operational. Surprisingly, despite the fact that these images were released yesterday, no Spanish media has published anything about this.