Direct proof of use
Qassam-series rockets are directly documented in the 2023 Israel-Hamas War through research on the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack. A 2025 Perspectives on Terrorism article published by the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism assessed that the initial barrage against Israel included approximately 2,500 rockets, mainly al-Qassam rockets, and lasted about twenty minutes.
United Nations Human Rights Council findings separately describe the opening attack as a coordinated assault by Hamas's Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades and other Palestinian armed groups, conducted together with a large-scale rocket and mortar attack from Gaza toward southern and central Israel. That UN source supports the broader rocket-attack context; the ICCT/Perspectives article supplies the Qassam-specific identification for the opening barrage.
Sources: Drones and the Hamas-led Attack of 7 October 2023, UN Detailed Findings on 7 October Attacks
Timeline
The clearest dated Qassam-specific episode is the opening morning of October 7, 2023. The ICCT/Perspectives account places the first major salvo at about 6:20 a.m. local time, before and during assaults on the Israel-Gaza border area.
The UN commission described a heavy rocket and mortar barrage beginning at about 6:30 a.m. and cited an Israeli army spokesperson's 10:26 a.m. statement that 2,200 rockets and mortars had been fired. Hamas's military-wing leader Mohammed Deif claimed that the first strike exceeded 5,000 missiles and shells. These later figures describe the wider rocket and mortar attack rather than a separate public count of Qassam-series rockets.
Sources: Drones and the Hamas-led Attack of 7 October 2023, UN Detailed Findings on 7 October Attacks
Operational role
In this conflict the Qassam-series appears as part of Hamas and Gaza-based armed groups' short-range area-fire arsenal. The documented October 7 use was not a standalone rocket exchange: it formed part of a combined assault in which indirect fires were used to saturate Israeli air defenses, trigger sirens, and cover cross-border movement by ground, sea, and air assault elements.
The Lieber Institute describes Qassam rockets as crude, unguided surface-to-surface rockets made from steel or metal tubes and typically launched from improvised steel frames manually adjusted toward a target area. Those characteristics match the role documented in the 2023 opening barrage: massed, short-range, unguided rocket fire from Gaza rather than precision strike.
Public sources are stronger on the October 7 opening use than on later Qassam-model attribution. UN findings document thousands of rockets and mortar shells launched from Gaza into Israel through May 2024, but they do not identify which portion of those later launches were Qassam-series weapons. This record therefore treats later rocket-fire figures as conflict context, not as proof of additional Qassam-specific incidents.
Sources: Drones and the Hamas-led Attack of 7 October 2023, Qassam Rockets and Weapon Reviews, UN Detailed Findings on 7 October Attacks, AP October 7 Surprise Attack
