by Lilach Shoval, Shlomo Cesana and Daniel Siryoti
Hamas says Israel is "exaggerating" the scale of the tunnel discovered near Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha • Israel suspends transfer of building materials to Gaza Strip • GOC Southern Command warns terror attack from Gaza would have dire consequences for Hamas.
Israel Defense Forces
soldiers in the tunnel on Sunday
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Photo credit: Reuters  |
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Maj. Gen. Sami Turgeman at
the tunnel on Sunday
An opening to the tunnel
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Photo credit: Reuters 
Hamas on Sunday boasted that its operatives
could dig dozens of terror tunnels similar to the one discovered near
Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha, which is adjacent to Israel's border with Gaza
Strip. "The minds which manage to dig the tunnel can dig dozens more," a
spokesman for the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas military wing, was
quoted by the BBC as saying via Twitter.
Another Twitter post said that "the will in
our people's hearts and minds is much more important than a tunnel that
has been discovered by the Zionist conqueror."
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told the BBC
that Israel was "exaggerating" the reports about the scale of the tunnel
in what he called an attempt to "try to justify the blockade and the
continuous aggression on the Gaza Strip."
The 1.7 kilometer-long tunnel (about a mile),
which stretches from the village of Absan al-Zarir, east of the Gaza
Strip town of Khan Younis, to about 400 yards within Israel, was
unearthed by the Israel Defense Forces last week, but its discovery was
placed under a media embargo and cleared for publication only on Sunday.
The tunnel's discovery has prompted Israel to suspend the delivery of
construction materials into Gaza.
According to the IDF, the tunnel is a little
over 180 centimeters (about 6 feet) in height and runs 18 meters (59
feet) deep underground for the majority of its length. Some 25,000
concrete slabs -- approximately 500 tons of concrete -- are lining its
walls and floor, and multiple power lines, as well as a telephone line,
were found installed inside. IDF forces also found various food wrappers
inside the tunnel, which were apparently left behind by those digging
it.
Since the tunnel's discovery, Engineering
Corps soldiers have been tracing its outline in an effort to ensure that
no explosives have been rigged inside and may be triggered remotely.
Military sources said that the tunnel, the
third of its kind to be discovered in Israel over the past year, was dug
using advanced machinery, and was most likely meant to facilitate the
infiltration of terror cells into Israel, for the purpose of executing a
terror attack or abducting Israeli soldiers.
The defense establishment believes that the
tunnel was a "finished project" completed about three months ago, and
that its digging took over a year. Although multiple exists were found
in the tunnel, none had been excavated in the Israeli side, reinforcing
assessments suggesting that the infrastructure was meant to "lie in
wait" for orders to make the tunnel operational.
The IDF has said in the past that there are dozens of tunnels running between Gaza Strip and Israel.
GOC Southern Command Maj. Gen. Sami Turgeman
said Sunday that the tunnel constituted "a gross violation of [Israel's]
sovereignty," adding that "if Hamas pursues a terror attack it will pay
a heavy price for it. Gaza Strip will not be the same if such a terror
attack is realized."
Following the tunnel's discovery, Israel has
decided to halt the delivery of construction materials to Gaza Strip.
Some 350 trucks carry cement and other building materials into Gaza
Strip every week, as part of a goodwill gesture that has been afforded
to the Palestinians since early September, ahead of the U.N. General
Assembly meeting in New York.
Speaking at the weekly cabinet meeting on
Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lauded the IDF's discovery of
the "Gaza terror tunnel," as he called it, saying that "the operation
was part of our anti-terror policy. Our operations and policies have
resulted in what has been the quietest year in a decade. Nevertheless,
we have been seeing a rise in terror activity over the past few weeks."
Defense Minister Moshe (Bogie) Ya'alon issued a
statement on Sunday, saying "the discovery of this terror tunnel on the
Gaza border serves as additional proof that Hamas is continually
preparing for a confrontation with Israel."
Ya'alon added that "the IDF's basic premise is that
terror groups in Gaza are constantly digging tunnels to use in terror
attacks."
Lilach Shoval, Shlomo Cesana and Daniel Siryoti
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=12559
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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