|
Trending Topics
|
IDF Combat Engineers Search for Hamas Tunnels
(Times of Israel) Emanuel Fabian - The Israel Defense Forces Combat Engineering Corps does not have plans to engage in tunnel warfare, as the passages are likely to be booby-trapped. Instead, it is demolishing the tunnels as they are being found. Combat engineers have found 28 rocket launch sites - including dozens of launchers and rockets - and 91 tunnels in northern Gaza within the first 10 days of the ground offensive. Another 40 tunnels and dozens more rocket launchers were located south of Gaza City. Lt.-Col. "A" said that most of the tunnels and rockets they had found were deep within civilian sites. "We encounter a lot of weapons, a lot of tunnels. Here you saw one under a children's room. We found them in playgrounds, we found them in kindergartens, and in mosques. Tomorrow morning someone will say, 'Why did they attack a mosque?' This is why." The neighborhoods along the northern coast of Gaza are ghost towns. "A" said that his unit had not encountered civilians at all in its area of operations. "I know there were other areas where there were civilians." He had heard of an incident in which civilians who approached troops to ask for water had been used as cover for gunmen to open fire at the soldiers.