ISRAEL HAS RELEASED footage of what it says is an underground tunnel leading from Gaza to Israel.
Its defence forces have been been targeting such tunnels in the Gaza Strip, which is home to 1.8m people and is 40km long and 12k wide.
The tunnels are viewed as a “game changer” in the war between Hamas and Israel, as AP put it.
It said:
Israel has known about the tunnels for several years but has been hard-pressed to find an effective way to block them. Now it is counting on its ground war to at least reduce the threat.
There are two sets of tunnels from Gaza, one which stretches to Egypt, and another to Israel.
They are used not only for consumer goods, fuel and building supplies, but also cattle and cars.
And in some of the tunnels, weapons and cash have been brought through. There is the fear that militants could use the tunnels to attack communities in Israel, said AP.
This is a huge part of why the so-called “terror tunnels” are being targeted by Israel.
The IDF said of the video:
This tunnel would have enabled terrorists to infiltrate Israel and carry out attacks. It was discovered and detonated by the IDF’s Golani Brigade and Combat Engineering Corps.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Operation Protective Edge will not end “without neutralising the tunnels whose sole purpose is killing our citizens.”
The country’s ground offensive was to defend itself from the tunnels, and led to an increase in deaths in the Gaza Strip, overwhelmingly of civilians.
For more on the conflict, read our explainer on what is happening in Gaza.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say