The Israeli army had prepared itself for an attack by Islamic Jihad earlier this week after three of their operatives were killed by IDF fire, a senior IDF officer in the Southern Command said Thursday.
On Sunday, three of the terror group’s members were killed when IDF tanks struck an observation post in the southern Gaza Strip in response to an explosive device hidden in bolt cutters that was placed on Israel’s security fence.
While the military was not certain when the attack by the Iranian-funded Gaza terror group would take place, the IDF spoke to regional council heads and deployed Iron Dome batteries in anticipation of an attack, according to the senior officer.
On Tuesday, over 100 mortars and rockets were fired towards communities and military posts along the Gaza Strip, injuring 3 soldiers and several civilians. The attacks began with three rounds of 28 mortar shells fired towards southern Israeli communities at 7 in the morning, with at least several exploding inside communities in the Eshkol Regional Council.
According to the senior officer, Israel struck dozens of high-value Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets in the Hamas-run coastal enclave in response to a mortar which fell in the yard of a kindergarten shortly before students were set to arrive for the school day.
The senior officer stated that the 65 targets struck by the IDF included a drone facility, rocket manufacturing plant, advanced naval weaponry, military compounds, training camps and weapons factories.
“These were targets that have been on our ‘waiting list,’” he said, adding that Hamas invested a significant amount in these sites in the anticipation of using them in the next war with Israel.
Among the high value targets was an offensive tunnel built in the last year that infiltrated both Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula as well as Israeli territory one kilometer away from an Israeli community.
According to the officer, bags of UNRWA cement were found inside the tunnel. The cement was intended for civilian infrastructure projects in the Strip.
The officer stated that the intelligence on the tunnel has been shared with Egypt who have neutralized it on their territory as well.
While rocket fire towards communities remains a major concern for Israel, the threat posed by offensive tunnels infiltrating Israeli territory is one which the IDF has invested millions of shekels into thwarting, building an underground barrier with the Strip which acts as a “guillotine.”
According to the senior officer, 12 Hamas tunnels have been destroyed in the past two years, including six that infiltrated into Israeli territory.
While the underground barrier, which also stretches into the Mediterranean Sea in the form of a breakwater, is set to be completed by the end of 2019, “whoever gives the number of tunnels which remain is irresponsible,” the officer said.
“We don’t know everything yet and the threat [posed by the tunnels] remains until the barrier is completed.”
The Southern Command, he said, was operating with a “very clear” directive and acted in a “very responsible manner” to make sure the latest round of violence didn’t escalate into a full-blown war.
“If it continued, we were ready for something a lot bigger and Hamas knew it,” he said, stressing that “it could have ended very differently.”
Article source: https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Palestinians-say-500-prisoners-in-Israeli-jails-to-start-hunger-strike-558836
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