by Lilach Shoval, Daniel Siryoti and Israel Hayom Staff
More than 60 percent of Hamas' rocket manufacturing system was destroyed by Israeli strikes during Operation Protective Edge, senior IDF official says • IDF estimates that Hamas now only has about one-third of 9,000 rockets it possessed before operation.
Numerous Gaza neighborhoods
have been seriously damaged during Operation Protective Edge
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Photo credit: AP  |
More than 60 percent of Hamas' rocket
manufacturing system has been taken out by Israeli strikes during
Operation Protective Edge, a senior IDF officer said on Sunday.
Additionally, Hamas' rocket-smuggling capabilities have also been
significantly reduced in recent years, thanks to steps taken by Egypt.
The IDF officer said Hamas would try to learn
lessons from the relatively low effectiveness of its rocket fire due to
the success of the Iron Dome rocket defense system.
"Gaza begins its reconstruction process in a
much worse place than Lebanon was in 2006 [after the Second Lebanon
War]," the officer said. According to the officer, Hamas entered the
current round of fighting in economic, internal and diplomatic distress,
and is now approaching a cease-fire without any significant economic
achievements and isolated in the world.
According to IDF estimates, Hamas now only has
about one-third of the 9,000 rockets it possessed before Operation
Protective Edge began. Since the start of the operation, the IDF has
struck more than 4,600 targets in Gaza. In the near future, the IDF will
declare the mission of identifying and destroying 31 cross-border
attack tunnels built by Hamas complete.
Over the weekend, some IDF troops left Gaza,
while others remained in certain limited areas. At this point, the IDF
plans to maintain its current force level in the Gaza region, to leave
it with the option of continuing the fighting in Gaza, if necessary.
On Saturday, Ahmed al-Mabhouh, the nephew of
Mahmoud al-Mabhouh (the Hamas official assassinated in Dubai in 2010),
was assassinated in a joint IDF-Shin Bet operation in Gaza.
Mabhouh, 31,
was a Hamas combat engineering and bomb unit officer in Jabaliya.
According to the Shin Bet, Mabhouh's activities included the concealment
of rockets to be launched at Israel and the preparation of complex
explosive devices.
As IDF troops pulled out of Gaza over the
weekend, Gaza residents returned to the streets and began to see the
level of destruction in their neighborhoods. Ashraf al-Kudra, a
spokesman for civilian emergency services in Gaza, said that with the
collapse of the sewage system and with hundreds of bodies still lying in
the rubble, there is real concern about disease epidemics breaking out
in Gaza.
"Gaza is on the brink of a humanitarian crisis," Kudra said.
A senior Gaza Interior Ministry official said
reconstruction costs in Gaza could reach hundreds of millions of
dollars, but it was still unclear where such funds would come from.
Reports from Gaza say thousands of Gazans are
camping out near Shifa hospital, assuming that Israel will not strike
the hospital or the surrounding area.
Nevertheless, Hamas and other Gaza terrorist groups continue to fire from hospitals and nearby areas.
Meanwhile, Coordinator of Government
Activities in the Territories Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai approved the
entry into Gaza of 200 trucks carrying basic food products, medicines,
medical supplies and hygiene products that will be given to aid groups
and then distributed to the civilian population in Gaza.
Lilach Shoval, Daniel Siryoti and Israel Hayom Staff
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=19223
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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