A Hamas terrorist prepares to launch a rocket at Israel. (Ashraf Amra/Flash90)
Besides carrying out terror attacks throughout Israel in the form of stabbings, shootings, car-ramming, rocket-firing and even planting explosives, Hamas has also resumed tunnel-building near the Gaza border.
Hamas has accelerated its tunnel-building operations near the Gaza border towards Israeli towns and villages, Israeli military officials said, according to Walla news.
Less than two years after Israel delivered Hamas’ tunnel infrastructure a serious blow during Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014, Hamas’s fighters have stepped up the pace of their excavations.
The tunnels were part of a massive plot by Hamas to smuggle 200 terrorists into the south of Israel in order to kill and kidnap civilians and soldiers.
IDF officials said, however, that Hamas had suspended digging operations beyond the border fence, fearing Israeli technology meant to detect such activity, according to the report. Earlier this year, the IDF investigated reports of Hamas tunneling under Kibbutz Nirim in the Negev after a private contractor concluded that Hamas had resumed digging tunnels into Israel. In fact, Hamas boasted publicly that it was rebuilding the tunnels destroyed during Operation Protective Edge.
Weapons discovered in Hamas terror tunnel in August 2014. (IDF Spokesperson/Flash90)
Tunnel-digging isn’t the only method of terror occupying Hamas in its determination to defeat Israel. For instance, it has also stepped up its domestic rocket manufacturing, the IDF officials said. Hamas and other terrorist groups possess rockets with ranges that can reach nearly all Israeli cities.
According to Israeli news website 0404, Hamas test-fired three rockets on Wednesday over the Mediterranean Sea.
The Israeli Security Agency recently nabbed a large Hamas terror cell in Abu Dis, a Palestinian town just east of Jerusalem, which was planning massive suicide bombings and other acts of terror. The investigation, which lasted several weeks, included the discovery of a makeshift laboratory used for creating explosives.
In another case, Israeli security forces captured well-organized, five-member Hamas cell located in Shechem (Nablus) that carried out a terror attack in October near the community of Itamar in Samaria, in which Eitam and Naama Enkin were shot to death in the presence of their four young children.
By: United with Israel Staff
(With files from The Algemeiner)