HAIFA, Israel –  Hundreds of Iranian-made,  long-range missiles already smuggled into Gaza provided a secret sense of  urgency behind Israel’s recent campaign against Hamas, and the the Jewish state  acted with the Obama administration’s full knowledge, intelligence experts told  FoxNews.com.

Jonathan Schanzer, a former counter-terrorism analyst at the U.S. Department  of the Treasury, said the real agenda behind Israel’s assault last month on  Hamas’ munitions stockpiles and smuggling tunnels was not simply to end the  daily barrage of relatively primitive rockets that have become part of daily  life in Israel. The real mission was to eliminate as many as 100 Iranian-built  Fajr5 missiles – with the power to reach Tel Aviv – that had been sneaked into  Gaza through Egypt. The Obama administration knew in advance of the operation  and agreed that the missiles, built in a Sudanese factory, had to be neutralized  to protect millions of Israeli citizens who were now within range of the deadly  Iranian weapons, according to Schanzer.

“The U.S. was fully aware of what was going to come in Gaza,” Schanzer, now  vice president of research at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies,  told FoxNews.com. “They said nothing for the first few days of the operation;  there was dead silence from [Obama].”

Israel essentially achieved its main aims within the first few days, said  Schanzer, noting that Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., said as  much when he remarked on Day Three of the campaign: “We have run out of good  targets.”

Rocket attacks from Gaza were commonplace in Israel prior to the campaign,  dubbed “Operation Pillar of Defense,” with at least 750 projectiles falling on  the area close to the border since January. The attacks were ratcheted up in  early November, which seemed to prompt Israel’s move and the deployment of its  vaunted “Iron Dome” defense system. But behind the scenes, the Israel Defense  Force (IDF) had a more pressing need to launch their intense bombardment on  Hamas’ weapons stores.

Israel’s elimination of senior Hamas figure Ahmad Jabari as he drove in broad  daylight in Gaza also fits into Schanzer’s narrative.

“Ahmad Jabari, along with another major Hamas figure, Mahmoud al Mabhouhk,  [who was assassinated in Dubai in 2010], was a key part of the procurement  network for the Fajr missiles and there is little doubt that Israel was keen to  take out the man responsible,” Schanzer explained.

Schanzer contends that the operation actually began three weeks earlier,  when, on Oct. 23, the Iranian-owned Yarmouk armaments factory in Sudan -  believed to be the assembly plant for the Fajr5 missiles that have a range of up  to 45 miles – was devastated by air strikes for which the Sudanese government  holds Israel responsible. Israel, and for that matter the U.S., both deny any  knowledge of the attack.

Sudanese Information Minister Ahmad Bilal Osman, told Al Jazeera the day  after the attack, “Israel has accused Sudan of sending arms to Hamas. These  allegations are not correct. The factory manufactures ordinary, legal  weapons.”

When asked how Sudan would respond to the incident, Osman answered, “We  definitely won’t attack Israel itself…but we have a right to tackle the  interests of Israel wherever they are from now on.”

It may not have been coincidental that the destruction of the Sudanese  factory occurred at exactly the same time that a joint Israeli/U.S. military  exercise, ‘Austere Challenge’, involving some 3,500 U.S. troops, was taking  place in Israel. Some military analysts have suggested that the exercises and  the Gaza operation were part of a dry run for a potential future incursion into  Iran.

The suggestion of American knowledge and approval of the alleged Israeli  attack in Sudan and the subsequent offensive in Gaza, undermines the theory that  Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were not on speaking terms  after the elections, in which Netanyahu expressed support for Mitt Romney. The  grave threat posed by the Fajr5 rockets may have been enough for both leaders to  agree that something had to be done – and fast.

“The fact of the matter is that there was a significant upsurge in rocket  fire from Gaza in the weeks leading up to the operation,” an Israeli  administration source told FoxNews.com. “Once the need to respond was there, it  made sense to take the opportunity to act against the most dangerous weapons.  Those (the Fajr rockets) were the first targets. There was a need to minimize  their ability to target major population centers in Israel.”

The apparent coordination between Israel and the U.S. raises questions about  the role of Egypt, which was credited with helping broker a cease fire between  Israel and Hamas. The missiles were almost certainly smuggled into Gaza from  Egypt, with the likely knowledge of  President Morsi, whose Muslim  Brotherhood is the parent organization of Hamas. 

“There’s little doubt that Iranian-built rockets came from Sudan through  Egypt, and that Egypt’s security forces weren’t interested in intercepting the  missiles,” Eric Trager, of the Washington Institute, an expert on Egyptian  affairs, told FoxNews.com. “Morsi was more interested in furthering his own  internal agenda than worrying about foreign policy issues at that time.”

Had Israel not acted when it did to destroy Hamas’ new and more lethal  stockpile of weapons, the situation could have escalated, drawing other parties  into a wider Middle East war.

“I think that Washington and the international media have been so lazy in  their coverage of this conflict in terms of identifying what actually happened,”  Schanzer said. “Both the Israeli intelligence community and Israeli officials  referred to the presence of Fajr5 missiles in the hands of Hamas as ‘game  changing rockets,’ a change that very nearly produced Israel’s own Cuban missile  crisis.”