(Jerusalem Post) Yaakov Lappin - On the first full day of a truce with Hamas on Tuesday, senior IDF officers began sharing their war stories. The army uncovered the shaft in Gaza of a cross-border tunnel that surfaced in a hothouse located right next to a Palestinian kindergarten. It led directly to Kibbutz Netiv Ha'asara in Israel, where Hamas gunmen planned to massacre civilians. Other units found rocket launch tripods in school playgrounds. "At the entrance to Beit Hanun, there were more homes with booby-traps than not," said another army officer. "Much of the destruction of homes in Gaza was because of Hamas booby-traps." In recent days, the IDF came under increased Hamas mortar fire, and when it traced the origin of the attacks, it found that they came from kindergartens and playgrounds in Gaza. "This limited us a lot," said a source. A senior IDF commander added, "Gaza is totally different now. Hamas built capabilities it could not effectively activate. Islamic Jihad's apparatus has been taken apart."
2014-08-06 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive