IDF discovers underground Hamas weapons bunkers in West Bank

From YNet:

The IDF has discovered dozens of suspected terror tunnels in the Hebron area during Operation Brother's Keeper. Members of Israel's elite engineering unit Yahalom uncovered the tunnels and hiding holes while searching for the three teens kidnapped in the West Bank ten days ago.

Some of the tunnels were found by soldiers inside the homes of Palestinians, under large pieces of furniture and laundry machines. According to one senior officer in the engineering corps, the IDF had no prior intelligence reports regarding the tunnels.

Using their specialized equipment, Yahalom (diamond in Hebrew) forces participated in dozens of raids on the homes of Palestinian activists across the West Bank, confiscating caches of weapons and explosives.

The unit's forces discovered close to 20 laboratories for manufacturing improvised explosives devices hidden in homes they searched. "We would arrive at a suspicious home and find a family living on the first floor and a laboratory with explosives on the third floor," said a senior officer in the unit.

"We also discovered underground spaces in the Hebron area which we had not known about previously. Because of the intensive operations, we have had to cut short the advanced training for some of our soldiers in order to reinforce the units in the field, even as we continue our operations in the Gaza sector and GOC Northern Command," he added.

IDF forces continued to comb the area north of Hebron on Sunday, searching wells, water reservoirs, pits and ditches on agricultural lands, and homes in order to find the kidnappers or a clue that will lead Israeli forces to them.

Absurdly, "human rights organizations" are regarding the operation that is uncovering this huge terror network as "collective punishment." Under international law, however, they are wrong:

Amnesty and other civil rights groups are arguing that Israel can look for the missing teenagers as long as it does not inconvenience anyone, said international law professor Eugene Kontorovich, who teaches at Northwestern and Hebrew universities. But that has little to do with international law, he suggested.

“Rounding up suspects, or potential witnesses, is not punishment, but rather rudimentary investigative process,” Kontorovich said. “Especially when the crime is thought to be committed by a complex terror organization, the number of potential witnesses is high. There is no evidence whatsoever that the Palestinians are being rounded up just to get back at Palestinians, without any regard to their having potentially useful information.”

Collective punishment means targeting the broader community for the crimes of an armed group, Kontorovich added. “However, members of a criminal group can be punished for each others’ crimes as part of joint criminal enterprise. This is widely used against everyone from the Nuremberg defendants to drug dealing gangs.” Police often round up gang members after a crime hoping they can shed light on the perpetrators or that they themselves might be liable for offenses committed in furtherance of the joint criminal enterprise, he said.

(Video of the operation is at the YNet article)