play videoplay video
Video duration: 14 minutes 51 seconds 14:51
Al Jazeera broadcast exclusive footage leaked from Israeli soldiers' cameras of booby-trapping Palestinian civilian homes and blowing them up in the Gaza Strip, which also included destructive devices for the Israeli engineering corps and pumping explosive liquids into tunnels.
The exclusive scenes also included the revelation of advanced devices used by the Al-Qassam Brigades - the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) to target the Israeli engineering corps in battles.
In addition, an Al Jazeera investigation revealed that Al-Qassam used - for the first time - a glove device to target the Israeli engineering corps during the current war.
Al Jazeera's investigation - prepared by journalist Suhaib Al-Assa - presented exclusive pictures and traced the details of the Israeli engineering corps, its capabilities, and the Al-Qassam Brigades' preparations for this confrontation.
Israeli Engineering Corps
The function of the engineering corps in the occupation army is focused on searching for and destroying tunnels, booby-trapping buildings and demolishing them, in addition to destroying the infrastructure of vital facilities in Gaza. It can be divided into 3 types according to tasks and method of work, which are the heavy engineering corps, the armored engineering corps, and the special missions engineering corps.
The Israeli army allocates to each combat front in the Heavy Engineering Corps a permanent combat division on the front called the Regional Division, along with an engineering battalion.
In the Gaza Strip, there is the Fire Foxes Division, which was attacked by the Palestinian resistance in the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation, and it serves an engineering battalion consisting of 3 companies: the Steel Cats, the Steel Knights, and the Tactical Engineering.
The Armored Engineering Corps also appears, as there is an engineering battalion with each armored brigade, and from it branch out regular brigades accompanied by 3 engineering battalions: Barak, Seven, and Steel Heels. There are also 10 reserve brigades accompanied by 10 armored engineering battalions, in addition to infantry brigades such as Givati, Golani, and paratroopers. And the beekeeper and the need.
The Armored Corps' equipment consists of D9 crawler bulldozers, excavators, large wheeled bulldozers, Tiger armored vehicles, and minesweepers.
In turn, the Engineering Corps for Special Tasks, “Yhalom,” includes 4 active battalions: the Yael Battalion, whose activity is focused on precision bombing operations and planting bombs, and the Samur Battalion, which was created specifically to fight the tunnel network in Gaza in 2013.
Samour is responsible for detecting tunnel openings and fighting within their paths. She has vehicles dedicated to pumping liquid explosives into the tunnels and detonating them without the need for fighters to enter.
The Bezeq Battalion's tasks are focused on dealing with tunnels and explosives through the use of robots, while the task of discovering and destroying non-explosive devices and dealing with minefields is assigned to the Yassaf Battalion.
What did the resistance prepare in Gaza?
On the other hand, the Qassam Brigades, confronting the Israeli Engineering Corps, relied on two things: building precise engineering ambushes, and implementing deadly deception and lure plans. To achieve this, they relied on a number of explosive devices.
Al-Qassam has 5 types of devices, which are the circular thunderbolt device whose explosive material explodes forward in the form of a circle with a diameter of 12 meters and an extension of up to 140 meters, carrying with it fragments that are fatal to individuals.
As for the television device - according to Al Jazeera’s investigation - it explodes in a rectangular shape with a transverse blast wave with a range of up to 60 meters in length and 60 meters in width, and it is very similar to a vacuum device.
Al Jazeera's investigation revealed a new gas explosive device, which is an anti-personnel device. It jumps from a distance of one meter below the surface of the earth, and explodes, directing its fragments in a circular direction in all directions.
As for the Shawwaz bomb, it is the most famous Qassam bomb and is anti-personnel, but its explosive power allowed the fighters to use it in other tasks against the occupation soldiers, knowing that it is capable of penetrating between 60 and 65 centimeters in the vehicles.
Other types will be revealed later
In an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera, a leader in Al-Qassam said that during this war, the Brigades used other types of devices that will be revealed later, noting that the fighters also used other methods to strike the Israeli Engineering Corps forces, which led to the killing of dozens of soldiers and the destruction of dozens of vehicles.
Al-Qassam used its explosive devices in deliberate ways to obtain the best possible result, such as luring Israeli forces into previously booby-trapped tunnels, or luring them into booby-trapped tunnel eyes, or luring them into booby-trapped buildings, or monitoring and targeting buildings booby-trapped by the occupation, all the way to targeting engineering corps vehicles.
It should be noted that the Israeli Engineering Corps suffered more than 60 officers and soldiers as human losses during the current war on Gaza, but it was unable to destroy tunnels that it says are prisons for Israeli prisoners in the Strip.
Source: Al Jazeera