The IDF on Sunday revealed the demolition of the lengthiest and deepest Hamas terror tunnel. On Sunday the Israeli army also released a video showing a new “’laboratory’ it created for tracing cross-border tunnels dug by Hamas from Gaza into Israel.
According to Defence Minister Avigdor Liberman, the tunnel destroyed over the weekend was the longest and deepest yet built by Hamas, and was “ready for use”. As it was part of a broader tunnel system, it could possibly have been used by many Hamas terrorists to carry out terror attacks inside Israeli territory. The army said, the tunnel stretched “tens of meters” into Israeli territory in the area of the northern Gaza Strip, close to the Israeli community of Nahal Oz.
In recent months the laboratory which was founded 2 years has uncovered five tunnels as part of the IDF’s Gaza Unit, headed by Captain B, who has been trained in electrical engineering and chemistry.
The IDF defined the laboratory as its “technological arm” for tunnel exposure and said it works with operational and intelligence features to find tunnels on the Gaza border. The laboratory also works to advance technologies and to improve new findings and mapping techniques based on finding terrorist tunnels in different ways.
Military sources on Sunday suggested that Hamas might have been planning to use the tunnel while the protests at the Gaza border were happening. The TV report said Hamas was changing strategies to border protests because the Iron Dome rocket intercept system has slowly counteracted the terror group’s rocket abilities, and the new IDF laboratory is gradually counteracting its tunnel abilities.
It is reported that the IDF will have installed devices as part of the laboratory’s tools along the border, and is set to have finished both underground and overground blockades at the border, as part of a Gaza border defence project.
Moshe Ya’alon, former defence minister and ex-IDF chief of staff said that Israel was now the “world leader” in this part of defence and the US has invested $120 million in Israeli technology.
The tunnel demolition came amidst tensions along the security fence in recent weeks, with the Palestinians holding protests near the border.
