Terror group Hamas just had one of its cross-border tunnels from the Gaza Strip into Israel located by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). This is the first to be found since the 2014 war and was most likely dug after the IDF destroyed a majority of tunnels in Operation Protective Edge.
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It’s widely known that Hamas builds these tunnels for the sole purpose of infiltrating Israel to carry out terror attacks; this tunnel was quite deep and it gives the appearance that Hamas was attempting to thwart detection by the IDF due to its depth.
This tunnel discovery 10 days ago was kept under wraps by Israeli officials with permission to announce its discovery only given out on Monday, which is more than likely attributed to Israel’s advanced technology that alerts and detects tunnels of this nature. This alert system was developed by Israel’s Ministry of Defense’s Administration for the Development of Weapons and Technological Infrastructure, the Geophysical Institute of Israel, Elbit Systems Ltd. and a few others after the war with Hamas in 2014; it has proved invaluable in protecting Israel from Hamas terrorist attacks.
A senior Israeli security source said of the classified technology,
“The challenge is very big. The tunnels are very deep. We have capabilities that do not exist anywhere else in the world. We can detect, at depths of 30 to 40 meters [and the IDF is] always operating under the severe assumption that there are more intrusive tunnels out there. If we can…detect and destroy them, and achieve it without reaching an escalation, that is our set mission. If this does lead to an escalation, it will not deter us either.”
Israel faces terror threats on a daily basis, this is just one more tool in its arsenal to deter a terror attack on its soil by a terror group who’s hell-bent on killing Israelis. Besides detecting and destroying these Hamas tunnels, what else could Israel do to stifle the terror group?
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