Aboard ship, we used star shells and flares to throw off IR seekers. Hamas probably has ground weapons that utilize infrared.
I did a little googling and found references to 155 mm (and smaller) arty and mortar shells that disperse smoke canisters and also shells that disperse WP soaked felt pieces. The WP auto-ignites in the atmosphere.
The ordinance in these photos clearly contains a LOT of ‘smoke emitters’ per item.
Not sure what it is. But thanks for the help.