About four kilometers long, 50 meters deep: these are the dimensions of the largest Hamas tunnel that the Israeli Army has discovered inside the Gaza Strip. Located less than half a kilometer from the Erez crossing, on the border with Israel north of the Palestinian enclave, it was one of the entry doors for its militiamen to commit the brutal attack on October 7.
“Millions of dollars have been spent on this tunnel, hundreds of tons of cement and a lot of electricity. Instead of spending all that money, cement or electricity on hospitals, schools, housing or other needs of the inhabitants of Gaza,” he said Inside the tunnel Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, spokesman for the Israeli Army.
Over the weekend, Hagari showed a small group of media, including EFE, one of the exit mouths of the tunnel and several meters of its interior, where the magnitude and solidity of this project, which took years to build, was hidden. under sand and was one of the key players in perpetrating the attack on Israeli soil that left more than 1,200 dead and 240 kidnapped.
“This was until now Yahya Sinwar’s best kept secret, but we have discovered and revealed it,” said Hagari, referring to the head of the Islamist group Hamas within the Strip, and considered the mastermind of the October 7 attack, the largest massacre of civilians ever occurred in Israel and the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
Israel claims that it was his brother, Mohamed Sinwar, who led and supervised the construction of this tunnel and showed journalists videos recorded by the group, found by the Israeli Army during its ground offensive in the enclave, in which he is seen in a vehicle circulating inside the tunnel, which gives an idea of ??the magnitude of the project.
Although they have not officially confirmed it, this week the Israeli aviation dropped leaflets over the cities of Gaza and Khan Younis – the stronghold of the Sinwar family -, in which they offered financial rewards to Gazans for offering information on the whereabouts of senior Hamas commanders. . Yahya Sinwar’s head was valued at $400.00, the highest amount, while that of his brother, who commands the southern brigade of the al-Qasam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, was paid at $300,000.
Hagari promised to “defeat” Hamas and destroy its entire tunnel infrastructure, where they say their top commanders are hiding, including the Sinwar brothers, although they probably also hold there some of the 129 hostages they still hold captive within the enclave, that around twenty are estimated to have already died.
“This is Hamas, it will take us time to defeat Hamas, but we will hunt down Sinwar and the terrorists who participated in the October 7 attack. We will find them above and below ground (…) We have two missions in this war: destroy Hamas and the rescue of our hostages,” Hagari said.
The newly revealed tunnel, inside which they found numerous weapons, is a key piece of Hamas’ extensive tunnel network, equipped with reinforced concrete, electricity, ventilation, sewage, communication networks and roads for vehicle traffic.
The Army assures that, since the ground offensive on the Strip began on October 27, they have found numerous tunnels, under hospitals, schools and other civil infrastructure, such as the Shifa hospital in Gaza City, which they besieged and attacked for more than of ten days, forcing the displacement of more than thousands of wounded and evacuated.
The exit mouth of this tunnel, with a diameter of more than three meters, has been discovered in a huge hole dug by Israeli troops on the surface, just 400 meters from the Erez crossing, which connects the north of the Strip with Israel. The tunnel was a “key piece” in the attack, which allowed thousands of Hamas militants to break in unseen and kill and kidnap soldiers. The bodies of two soldiers
In Erez there are still the remains of the aggression; walls knocked down, furniture destroyed, the electrical system destroyed – to dismantle the security cameras -, garrisons of soldiers reduced to ashes, and bullet holes everywhere.
“Hamas chose terror, conflict and horror, using its people on the surface as a human shield, using all the Gazan civilians who entered through the Erez crossing to work in Israel and earn money, using them as a decoy, preventing the coexistence of the citizens of Gaza, They chose terrorism,” said the rear admiral.
The Army claims that the Erez crossing was a “symbol of hope” for Gazans: 18,000 had work permits in Israel and earned a salary six times higher than in the Strip, and 7,000 crossed that crossing to receive medical treatment in Israeli hospitals. in 2022.
Since the war began on October 7, some 19,000 Palestinians have died from Israeli bombing and fighting, including almost 8,000 children; while more than 51,000 are injured and an estimated 7,500 bodies are trapped under the rubble, according to the count of the Ministry of Health of the Strip, controlled by Hamas.
Israel announced this Sunday that it has allowed 79 trucks with humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip through its Kerem Shalom border crossing, thus fulfilling a commitment it made on Friday with the United States to alleviate the serious humanitarian crisis that has left the war in the Palestinian enclave.
“79 trucks (with humanitarian aid) were inspected and transferred to Gaza via Kerem Shalom,” said Cogat, the Israeli military body that controls civil affairs in the occupied territories, through the X social network.
In addition, another 122 trucks inspected at the Nitzana crossing were transferred to Gaza through Rafah, the border between Egypt and the Strip, for a total of 201 trucks sent this Sunday, he added.
This morning, Cogat announced that UN aid trucks would be moved directly to Gaza through Kerem Shalom “to comply with the agreement with the United States” to increase the daily volume of humanitarian aid entering Gaza.
A source in Gaza confirmed to EFE that trucks from the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, were indeed transporting aid from Kerem Shalom.
However, a Red Crescent source who accompanied the convoy of trucks from Egypt told EFE that the vehicles did not enter the Gaza Strip through Kerem Shalom, but were unloaded at the border point and that, later, ” “international workers along with Palestinians collected the aid.”
“The humanitarian aid trucks were ordered to leave supplies at the Kerem Shalon border crossing, but not to bring aid into the Strip,” so the trucks returned empty to Egyptian territory, he explained.
The Government of Israel temporarily authorized the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza through Kerem Shalom on Friday to decongest the only crossing authorized so far, that of Rafah.
This announcement was made after a visit to Israel by US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.
Kerem Shalom, in southern Israel near Egypt, has been operating for a week as a checkpoint for aid trucks going to the Palestinian Strip, but once checked they were sent to Rafah. A total of 470 trucks have followed this process in the last week, according to Cogat.
Israel committed to the United States – its main ally and a country that has given it military support in the war against the Islamist group Hamas – to transfer two hundred trucks a day of food and humanitarian aid, but Rafah only has capacity for one hundred.
“One hundred trucks of aid every day are not enough for our people (…) we want five hundred trucks a day,” Jalil Al Haya, a senior Hamas official, said this Sunday in an interview with Al Jazeera.
