On Monday, the occupation army announced the destruction of a tunnel it said belonged to the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military arm of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the northern Gaza Strip. On the other hand, a Hamas spokesman described the Israeli announcement as mere electoral propaganda.
In a written statement, Ella Waweh, deputy spokesman for the occupation army, said that the tunnel was dug from the northern Gaza Strip, and crossed "Israeli territory" but did not breach the wall that Israel built in the vicinity of the Strip, and therefore the tunnel did not pose any threat to Israeli areas and towns.
The deputy Israeli spokesman indicated that the tunnel was destroyed in recent weeks, without specifying the date.
The occupation army launched a 3-day military operation last week (from 5 to 7 August) against sites it said were affiliated with the Islamic Jihad movement in the Gaza Strip.
In turn, the commander of the Gaza Division of the occupation army, Nimrod Aloni, said that the discovered tunnel crossed Israeli territory, but it did not pass the area of the new security obstacle, and therefore did not pose a threat to the citizens of Israel at any stage.
Aloni added that the armed wing of Hamas worked to restore the path of an old tunnel that was attacked in the military operation against the Gaza Strip, in May 2021.
#Urgent thwarting a two-fold terrorist tunnel belonging to the terrorist organization #Hamas, which crossed into Israeli territory without violating the security obstacle that was completed about a year ago, and which constitutes an important security factor in maintaining security in the adjacent perimeter and thus did not pose any threat to the adjacent areas and towns pic .twitter.com/HOiLA179uE
— Avichay Adraee (@AvichayAdraee) August 15, 2022
right of resistance
On the other hand, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said that the resistance has the right to work in every way to enhance its capabilities and develop its capabilities in the face of the arrogance and criminality of the Israeli occupation and its massacres against the Palestinian people.
Barhoum confirmed in a press statement that the occupation aims with this announcement to cover up the crimes it committed against Gaza.
He added, "The occupation army is trying to market fake achievements and victories to the Israeli society to use as propaganda in the electoral bazaar."
The resistance fighters in Hamas had managed to deal harsh blows to the Israeli army using tunnels in the 2014 war.
At that time, Hamas fighters used the tunnels, and during that war two soldiers, Hadar Goldin and Aaron Shaul, who Israel says were killed during their capture, were captured.
In 2006, Hamas fighters managed to capture the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, by infiltrating a tunnel to reach a military site where he was, and the soldiers accompanying him and his family were killed, and back through the tunnel to the Gaza Strip.