Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: terror tunnels

Showing posts with label terror tunnels. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 20, 2023

IDF soldiers going into tunnels

IDF footage taken inside a Hamas tunnel

The IDF releases footage of troops of the Air Force’s elite Shaldag unit operating inside a Hamas tunnel in Gaza City.

The Shaldag soldiers operated inside the tunnel to scan it and obtain intelligence.

The IDF says it has discovered some 1,500 tunnel shafts in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the war, and is working to demolish them.

It says that the vast majority of the tunnels have been found in civilian sites, including schools, mosques, hospitals, UN buildings and residential homes.

Here's the video the IDF released:

IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari expanded on this Tuesday:

We are deepening the fight against Hamas's strongholds. Our forces are fighting above and below ground. Since the beginning of the ground operation in the Gaza Strip, IDF forces have discovered approximately 1,500 terrorist tunnel shafts and tunnel routes of Hamas. It's important to explain that this underground infrastructure is one of the main elements in Hamas's terror operations. Dismantling Hamas's underground strongholds in the north, center, and south is a significant step in dismantling Hamas, and it takes time, and our forces are working to carry this out.

Today, we released special footage of special forces from the "Shaldag" Unit of the Air Force fighting inside a Hamas tunnel in the heart of Gaza City. These new breakthrough capabilities allow us to achieve significant accomplishments, including killing terrorists underground. These are networks of terrorist infrastructure, above and below ground, located within hospitals, residential apartments, and schools.

The forces are deepening their operation in the area – destroying weapons, terror tunnels, and killing terrorists. A thorough operation to dismantle Hamas from its capabilities.

In southern Gaza, in the Khan Yunis area, we are intensifying and deepening our operation; we added a whole brigade and additional engineering forces to the operation in the area – engineering forces to improve our engineering operations in the area. We are intensifying forces in the Khan Yunis Hamas’ strongholds to dismantle Hamas and will continue to do so with determination wherever required.

This is significant. Up until now, the IDF had avoided actually going into tunnels to fight - for good reason. They would be at a tremendous disadvantage.

However, to dismantle Hamas which can hide in tunnels indefinitely as long as they can steal food and fuel, something has to be done. The IDF is obviously not going into detail on what these "breakthrough capabilities" are but apparently they came up with effective means to fight Hamas on its own home turf.

Robots? Drones? Dogs? Digging their own tunnels that can bypass Hamas' reinforced doors? Imaging that can penetrate the earth? I don't know what the IDF has up its sleeve, but given that it is trying to kill Hamas while rescuing hostages, let's hope that this works.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

The threat of Hezbollah explosives-filled tunnels

Alma Research and Education Center, which does a lot of analysis of Hezbollah, gives the world something to worry about:

In our opinion, explosive-filled terror tunnels are one of the threats and “surprises” that might be expected in a future confrontation with Hezbollah. The threat of terror tunnels is another layer in the underground infrastructure of Hezbollah’s “Land of the Tunnels” in Lebanon, which comprises attack tunnels, infrastructure tunnels, and strategic tunnels. In October 2021, we released an article regarding Hezbollah’s “Land of the Tunnels” underground infrastructure in Lebanon.

The usage of explosive-filled tunnels is less recognized. These tunnels are packed with explosives that run beneath a community, security facility, or geographical location where an explosion might harm the enemy. The tunnel is filled with tons of explosives and is sealed and activated at a determined moment.

Using these tunnels causes significant destruction. Due to their immense force and underground location, explosive charges in tunnels of this type, unlike bombs or missiles from the air, have the effect of an earthquake rather than a bomb and can thus destroy a community or an entire facility.

The utilization of this strategy during World War I is a distinct example of this. The Germans and the British excavated hundreds of such tunnels beneath no man’s land and extended defensive lines, wreaking havoc on the opposing side.

The Battle of the Messines Ridge (now French territory), which began on June 7, 1917, with a sequence of explosions of nineteen tunnels out of twenty-six excavated, is particularly noteworthy. Each tunnel contained a total of twenty-one tons of explosives. More than 400 tons of explosives exploded in total. The impact of the explosion could be heard as far away as London.

As a direct result of the explosion, it is estimated that 10,000 Germans were killed or buried alive beneath the mounds of dirt, and thousands of startled German soldiers were captured.

The article notes that ISIS used this tactic successfully in Syria, and a rudimentary version was used by Hamas against the IDF in 2001.

Read the whole thing. It is scary.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Work (tunnel) accident!

Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades announced the death of Thaer Nayef Al-Zuraie, 30, from Deir Al-Balah in the center of the Gaza Strip.

He died Sunday "while working in a tunnel for resistance."

The usual flowery language asking Allah to recognized him as a "martyr" (so he can rape lots of young virgins in Paradise) follows.

He was apparently a father as well.

Hamas is still spending millions on digging tunnels - but the people who pretend to be "pro-Palestinian" never mention that when they blame Israel for Gaza's economic woes.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

No one seems to complain when Egypt acts like Israel

From Ma'an:

Egypt plans to impose a 500-meter buffer zone along its border with the Gaza Strip, a senior Egyptian military official said Sunday.

Egyptian residents living in Saladin, al-Barahmeh, Canada, Brazil, al-Sarsouriya and other neighborhoods close to the Gaza border have received eviction notices.

Homeowners who received eviction orders demonstrated against the decision and burned tires in protest.

Army bulldozers have also uprooted trees in the border area.

The army has demolished 13 homes in the al-Sarsouriya neighborhood where tunnel entrances were found.

An Egyptian military official told Ma'an that most cross-border tunnels with entrances in fields or open areas had been destroyed in a security campaign to stop smuggling. He said it was more difficult to locate tunnels that opened into houses.

This was the same kind of clearing operation that Israel was doing on its side of the Gaza border - and which was permitted by Oslo - when Rachel Corrie was killed.

The article continues:

Egypt's army spokesman Ahmad Mohammad said that forces have destroyed 343 smuggling tunnels. He said the Egyptian military has also prohibited fishing near the border to prevent smuggling via the sea.

Hamas said Friday that two Palestinian fishermen were wounded and five others arrested by the Egyptian navy off the coast of the Gaza Strip.

"Some Egyptian navy ships fired in the direction of Palestinian fishing boats near the Egyptian border off the coast of Rafah at dawn on Friday," the Hamas government's press agency reported.

"Two fishermen were wounded and five others arrested," said Hamas.

They were both taken to the hospital in Rafah, medical sources said, adding that their lives were not in danger.

Hamas described the incident as an "unjustified act," and called for those "detained to be freed."

Isn't it amazing that when Israel defends itself from Hamas terror and smuggling of weapons, it is violating the human rights of 1.6 million Gazans - but when Egypt does the exact same thing, it is simply defending itself? Indeed, Egypt goes beyond what Israel does (by not allowing people and goods to cross into Gaza via the official crossings) and there is near total silence from the so-called "pro-Palestinian" activists.

Wednesday Links Part 1

From Ian:

Where Is the Feminist Outrage Over Discrimination in Gaza?

Refreshingly, the feminist writers from The Nation and Ms. Magazine did not openly come out and lay the blame for this public relations debacle at the feet of Israel.
But I will buy a free dinner at the vegan, slow food, locavore restaurant of your choice, in the city of your choice, if you can find one article in either publication by a feminist writer that explicitly and substantially criticizes Hamas and the Palestinians for their terrible and discriminatory mistreatment of women in Gaza. And especially this most recent incident of discrimination against Palestinian women.

Raping Women in the Name of Islam by Khaled Abu Toameh

What happened to the two women in Libya is a big disgrace not only to Islam, but to all those who sympathize with fundamentalists and terrorists, including the "scholars" and "sheikhs" who authorize such crimes.
Moderate Muslims who fail to strongly condemn the Muslim terrorists and rapists also bear responsibility for the crimes that are being committed in the name of Islam.
The gang rape in Libya will also cause tremendous damage to the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip. As of now, families of "pro-Palestinian" activists around the world will have to think ten times before sending their daughters on humanitarian aid convoys.

New Fatwa permits rape of non-Sunni women in Syria

Jordanian Sheih Yasir al-‘Ajlawni is certainly not the first cleric to legitimize the rape of infidel women in recent times. Calls to capture and rape non-Muslim women are appearing with increasing frequency and from all corners of the Islamic world.

Court finds stone-thrower guilty of murder

In a groundbreaking decision, a military court found a Palestinian man guilty of murder for throwing a rock at an Israeli car, causing it to crash and killing the driver and his infant son.
The court at Ofer military prison on Tuesday found Wa’al al-Araji, 25, from Halhul, to be directly responsible for the deaths in 2011 of Asher Palmer and his 1-year-old son Yehonatan.

Is Norway funding the murderers of Israelis?

"The country’s 3 largest opposition parties have asked for an investigation into Norwegian financing of the PA".

Too much of a good thing? Palestinians realize downsides of foreign aid boom

With food insecurity soaring and GDP declining, Palestinians in the West Bank are waking up to the fact that their foreign aid dependent economy is unsustainable.

The Tunnel Economy

Commercially speaking, these tunnels offer an opportunity to smuggle subsidized Egyptian goods and commodities that are banned from being exported, such as petroleum products or certain food items. Successive Egyptian governments have failed to find ways to reduce these subsidies—which deplete their budgets—for fear of social unrest. Likewise, these tunnels also represent an opportunity for more clandestine trades such as arms dealing.
The biggest beneficiaries of the tunnel trade may be the select group of families on both sides of the border, some of whom have transformed into millionaires, in addition to the Hamas government and what it collects from tax on smuggled goods.(h/t Zvi)

MEMRI: Egyptian Author Alaa Al-Aswany On Situation Of Copts In Egypt

In an ironic article, Egyptian author Alaa Al-Aswany describes what it is to be "a Muslim in Britain," metaphorically referring in fact to the state of the Copts in Egypt, who suffer from severe persecution and discrimination. The following are excerpts.

ElBaradei slams ban against Iranian tourists in (Egyptian) mosques

On Twitter, ElBaradei wrote, “How come we, Sunnis and Shias, perform pilgrimage together yet we talk about preventing Iranians from visiting some of the houses of God?”

Saudi man who paralysed his best friend in knife attack faces having his spinal cord severed in 'eye-for-an eye' punishment

The ultra-conservative desert Kingdom enforces Islamic law and on rare occasions issues punishments based on the ancient code of an ‘eye-for-an-eye’.
Ali Al-Khawahir was 14 years old when he stabbed his friend in the backbone and has been imprisoned for 10 years.

Lego denies discontinuing Jabba's Palace over race claims

Toy manufacturer Lego has denied claims by Austria's Turkish community that it is withdrawing one of its Star Wars products because of allegations it was riddled with racist stereotypes.

Also:
The Jewish “Occupation” of Judea?

One has to wonder why the international community decided to use the term West Bank even after the area was liberated. And the fact that all Jews were forced out of Judea and Samaria during Jordan’s illegal occupation is something you rarely hear in the media or anywhere else. I guess people want to maintain the false image of Jews in Judea and Samaria as “foreign occupiers”? Well, they are not foreign occupiers. Jews lived in the so called “West Bank” for ages…. That’s until all of them were either killed or forced out of the area after Jordan’s occupation started in 1948.