IAF Targets Terror Tunnels

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Written by Samuel Sokol

Wednesday, 06 January 2010 19:00

In a joint operation with the GSS (Shabak) last Friday night, the Israeli Air Force successfully targeted two terror tunnels leading from the northern and southern Gaza Strip towards Israel The tunnels originated from a distance of approximately one kilometer from the Gaza security fence and were intended for infiltrating into Israel and executing a terror attack against Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers. According to the Israeli military, the attacks were in response to the firing of a rocket at the city of Netivot last Thursday evening.

Also, in a joint IDF-GSS operation this Tuesday, the IAF attacked a group of terror operatives planning to fire rockets from the southern Gaza strip into Israel. Accurate hits were identified.

Since the end of Operation Cast Lead-an IDF incursion into the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip in January of last year in retaliation for several years of rocket attacks on Israeli civilians in the Negev Desert-more than 280 rockets and mortars have been fired at Israel. Throughout 2008, prior to Cast Lead, over 3,300 rockets and mortars were fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip.

In a statement released to the foreign press, the IDF declared that Israel's defense establishment "will not tolerate the firing of rockets by terrorist organizations at Israel and will continue to respond against any attempt to disrupt the calm in Israel's southern communities."

The IDF statement did not explain why the attack on the tunnel was undertaken only in response to a rocket attack, if the intended purpose of the underground passage was to facilitate terrorist activity against Israeli civilians.

There are several hundred smuggling tunnels running under the Philadelpi corridor between the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza. Despite numerous sorties flown by the IAF against the tunnel system, many Israelis consider it impossible to halt the use of the tunnels without a boots-on-the-ground operation. During Cast Lead, the upper echelons of the defense establishment decided against a move on the Egyptian-Gaza border.

According to a report in Al-Ahram, the official Egyptian state newspaper, there are currently around 1,200 such tunnels. Some 70,000 residents of Gaza are reported to be involved in digging the tunnels, which can cost up to $50,000 to excavate, but which can bring in profits of up to $184,000 in goods on a daily basis.

Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, a radical Islamist organization active in Egypt. Hamas operatives involved in tunneling operations have opened fire on Egyptian soldiers, and Egypt blames the tunnel network for facilitating attacks on its people.

In response to the popularity of Hamas on the Egyptian street and the threat that radical Islam, as represented by Hamas and the Brotherhood, poses to the secular-nationalist leadership of Egypt, the country's army has reportedly begun constructing a steel barrier that will run underground along the border, in an attempt to halt the smuggling.

Khalid Meshaal, Hamas's leader, issued a statement from Damascus, calling the barrier "a new war against Gazans." Intelligence officials, speaking before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee in August, announced that Hamas has used these tunnels to smuggle in new-model Kassam rockets believed to be capable of reaching Gush Dan, the area encompassing Tel Aviv and its suburbs.

Palestine Today, a Gaza City-based news website whose stated goal is to provide "focus on the Israeli terrorism against Palestinian people," recently posted pictures of Gazans preparing for the festival of Eid al-Adha, which show a bustling and full marketplace, contradicting reports of widespread hunger in the strip.